Johanna Elisabeth van der Heyden

With sadness I report the passing of Johanna ( aka Jo, Elsje, Else) Elisabeth van der Heyden on January 15,2026. She slowly slipped away in the night with love and conversation from David, her soulmate, for many years.

Born in Den Hague on November 2, 1954, to Henk and Dora, her family including brothers Edward and Robert moved to Canada in 1959 and lived in Surrey where her parents struggled to make ends meet with a drycleaning business in Newton.

Johanna was a rebellious independent strong-willed girl. She loved her Dad but she could never resolve his patronizing attitude with low expectations for girls and women and her own belief in her self-worth. This dichotomy remained for their entire lives.

Johanna attended Princess Margaret high school and was noted as an obstreperous student by her teacher. She was well liked by her fellow students with comments noted in her year book such as “ To Elsje The girl who talks as good with her hands as she does with her mouth. Hope to see you in ‘more’ classes next year.” Or “Congratulations to the most successful hooky player I ever met.” There are lots more comments from her many friends at school.

Jo did not complete High School but with adventure in her spirit and, as she would say, in love with the world, at the age of 18, she left home and ended up in Benidorm Spain working in the clubs. What could go wrong? Shy and with no experience she learned to be a bar tender. Learning on the job, at first, she determined how much whisky to pour into a glass by the look on the customer’s face as she filled the glass. She had keen observational skills. Fortunately, “whisky” is the same in English and Spanish. Over time Jo learnt to speak fluent Spanish to go along with Dutch and English.

Jo returned to Canada and, in time, became the manager at Pepita’s Restaurant on Robsons where she maintained lasting relationships with her co-workers in the close knit Latino family that worked there. Never content, she traded the domestic chores in Vancouver to the more fundamental chores of living in a small Indian village called Yelapa in Mexico. In Vancouver, a shortage of water means watering the lawn only once a week whereas in Yelapa it meant following the pipe up the hill to the stream to find the problem. After a couple of years and a sudden desire for peanut butter, Jo returned to Vancouver and moved into the CRCA Coop in New Westminster. She met David.

At the age of 32 Johanna completed her high school accreditation. She attended Simon Fraser University and received her Bachelor of Science Degree. She completed her Master of Science Degree. Her area of study in computer science was the “Detail in Context” problem and her thesis title is “Magnetic Resonance Image Viewing and the “Screen Real Estate” Problem”. She worked in industry for several years developing a user interface for a new type of MRI machine before teaching computer science at BCIT.

Jo had a love for people and was always a loyal friend. She loved travel and adventure, music and the arts. She attended acting classes, sang in and supported the Burstin with Broadway Choir and organized a gang to go to a music workshop in Kaslo for years. She was a doer and always had an opinion and actively participated in these activities.

Jo also spent many happy years sailing the San Juan islands, the Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound and Princes Louisa Inlet with David and many friends and our dog Leia.

In 2017 Jo was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and it got progressively more aggressive as time went on. In June of 2023 Johanna moved into the Berkley Care center. Johanna’s family, as would Johanna, wishes to express our sincere gratitude to the Berkley staff for the exceptional care and attention provided to Johanna during her stay.

Johanna is survived by her brother Robert and his wife Clara as well as his brother Edward and her nephew Wouter and his wife Lotte and there children.

A celebration of life is planned but has not been scheduled.