She is survived, in her immediate family, by her daughter Jo, her grandsons Jessie and Mike, her sister Thelma and her brother Stuart.
Her life included a dedication to her career and a love of reading, music, art and artistic expression, nature and the outdoors.
She was a talented artist. Her flower and vegetable gardens were beautifully designed and passionately cared for. She took pleasure in identifying flora and fauna. She was passionate about everything she chose to explore.
She learned to play the piano by ear and taught herself to read music allowing her to learn challenging pieces of classical music and play piano and organ, by invitation, for social events.
Her career gave her security and independence. She worked at a time when women were expected to stay home. Through incredibly hard work she lived a life of achievement and community involvement. She travelled to England, Scotland, the Continent and the Middle East and continued to educate herself throughout her career.
When she graduated, in 1946, as a Registered Nurse from the Health Sciences Centre at Winnipeg General Hospital her career expanded from the practice of nursing. She became a medical clinical instructor at City Hospital in Saskatoon, a visiting nurse to The Victorian Order of Nurses, and an instructor for the Centralized Teaching Program for student nurses at St. Andrews College at the U of S. She was a lecturer of language arts and Health Education at the College of Education.
She was admitted to the Honors Program in English at the U of S and received her B.A. and B. Ed with distinction along with a Professional A Teaching Certificate. Her graduate studies were in Continuing Education at the Masters level.
When she moved to Prince Albert to teach at the Prince Albert Regional Community College (which later became SIAST) she was a classroom instructor and was contracted to prepared curricula for upgrading, English communications and social foundations.
After a summer session class in special Ed. and learning disabilities at U.B.C. she became a coordinator of literacy and languages. She trained community volunteers, held tutor training sessions in northern Saskatchewan and in the P.A. penitentiary to teach inmates who could read to tutor inmates who could not.
She set up evening classes for beginner’s Cree, Spanish and other languages and established the first learner’s literacy newspaper in Saskatchewan, PINETIME, at Pinegrove Women’s Corrections.
For her dedication and hard work in this field she received Canada’s Literacy Volunteers’ Award, Certificate of Appreciation from Saskatchewan Justice and the Celebrate Literacy International Reading Association Award.
Above all she was a mother and grandmother. She is dearly loved and will be carried in our hearts forever.
“When you awake in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there. I did not die.”
COMPARTA UN OBITUARIOCOMPARTA
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