Obituary of Joanne Myfanwy Chennells

CHENNELLS, Joanne M.

March 17, 1940 - January 14, 2023

It is with deep sadness that we announce Joanne’s passing. Dearly loved and devoted wife of 58 years to William (Bill), loving mother to David of Toronto, and Suzanne of Calgary; and grandma to Oliver of Toronto.

Joanne was born in Trail, BC, to Edward (Ed) and Doris Davies. Ed, a Welshman born in 1902, had come to Canada as a teenager and pursued a profession as a high school math teacher and administrator. According to Joanne, her father jokingly rued that Joanne was born on St. Patrick’s Day instead of St. David’s Day earlier in March. Doris (nee Edwards), who grew up in British Colombia having been born in Winnipeg in 1912, was a pianist and piano teacher, a passion for music she passed onto both her children. Gwyneth Lamperson, the eldest, predeceased Joanne in 2021.

Joanne was busy practicing the piano and violin during high school, but nevertheless found time to be a leader in school and other activities, serving, for example, as chair of her 1958 graduation committee. After obtaining her RN at the Vancouver General Hospital in 1962, she travelled to Montreal with three fellow nursing school graduates to work at the Royal Victoria Hospital, where she was involved with the first kidney transplant in Canada.

An avid lifelong traveler, she and three friends embarked in Montreal aboard an ocean liner in April 1964 for a six-month tour of Europe. Then-boyfriend Bill, whom she had met après-skiing in the Laurentians, was left behind working in Shawinigan, PQ. Following a proposal by mail (sent to a general delivery address in an Adriatic Sea port in Italy), Joanne and Bill were married in Trail, BC, on November 14, 1964. They started their family in Nanaimo, BC, where both David and Suzanne were born. Moving to Calgary in 1969, Joanne worked part-time in a clinic once the children started school. She loved orchestral and opera performances, gardening, and a good mystery novel. For many years, they vacationed in the British Columbia interior at Shuswap Lake near Celista.

In retirement, Joanne and Bill went on cruises in the Caribbean, South America, and Asia, among other regions. They also attended many school and nursing class reunions together.

Joanne was an energetic, diligent, and loving mother to the children. They were “free range” kids, permitted wide latitude to explore. Even still, she was once taken aback to find that young David had climbed scaffolding in front of house and was perched at roof level.

Condolences, memories, and photos can also be shared and viewed here. If friends so desire, memorial tributes may be made directly to Doctors Without Borders(Médecins Sans Frontières) www.msf.ca, or to The Alzheimer Society of Alberta www.alzheimer.ab.ca.

In living memory of Joanne Chennells, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Crowfoot, 82 Crowfoot Circle NW, Calgary, AB T3G 2T3, Telephone: 403-241-0044.