Obituary of Nancy Dora Ragan

April 8, 1924 - Edmonton, Alberta

May 20, 2024 - Calgary, Alberta

With great sadness we announce the passing of Nancy Ragan (née Southgate) on Monday, May 20, 2024, in Calgary, AB, at the age of 100 years.

Nancy was predeceased by her loving husband of 63 years, Stan, their eldest son, John, and her two sisters, Dorothy and Joan. Left to cherish her memory are daughter-in-law Debra, and five remaining sons, David (Moira), Doug (Pat), Ken (Dominique), Tim (Colleen), and Chris (Ingrid); fourteen beloved grandchildren, Jillian, Michael, James (Tegan), Cassie, Riley (Jill), Carly, Lindsay, Arianne (Øystein), Sophie (Matt), Tobias, Brantford, Brooklyn, Katie (Ben), and Hugh (Judith); and four great-grandchildren, Charles, Evelyn, Elinor, and Kiera.

Nancy is also survived by her sister-in-law, Paula, and several nieces and nephews. Nancy Ragan was a loving and energetic matriarch to a large and busy family, and she will be terribly missed by us all.

Nancy Southgate was born in Edmonton on April 8, 1924. Upon graduation from high school in 1942 with very high grades, she was invited by the Government of Alberta to take a teachers’ course. She did so, and as part of the practical training was soon posted to a one-room schoolhouse in Genesee, 75 miles west of Edmonton, where she spent six months teaching 21 students spanning nine grades. After a second posting, she graduated from the teaching program in June 1944. She then enrolled in the Canadian Women’s Army Corp. (CWAC) and was posted to Toronto and then Halifax where she worked as a stenographer.

In September of 1946, she registered in the nursing program at the University of Alberta, and during the frosh week met a young engineering student named Stan Ragan on a hayride. During her nursing program, she quickly discovered that she liked the maternity ward best, where she could spend time with beautiful new babies - a discovery that may have been instrumental in her future.

She delivered the Valedictorian’s address at her class graduation in 1949, married Stan in September of 1950, starting a long life together, building a large and loving family. Raising six boys in the 1950s and 1960s took supreme organizational skills but Nancy was unfazed. After her six boys were old enough to no longer need hourly attention, Nancy returned to the University of Alberta to complete a master’s degree in educational psychology, which led to her long career in that field.

Nancy never defined herself by her professions, either nursing or psychology, although she often found occasion to remind her six boys of the many things she knew from her expertise in those fields. She was passionate about three things: maintaining the bonds of family, continuing to travel the world, and her never-wavering love of flowers and gardening.

Nancy’s love for travel probably started at the age of thirteen when her father took her and her sister to the Coronation of King George VI in London in 1937, during the closing years of the Great Depression. London was large and crowded, but exciting. A second trip the next year to Hawaii was also remembered with fondness, especially the tropical plants and flowers. From the childhood trips with her father to those she took while posted with the CWAC, and to the many more she planned and took with Stan and the boys, traveling was always part of the plan for Nancy’s near future. Perhaps the most famous family vacation was the six-week trip to Europe in 1970, with Nancy and Stan and the six boys in a blue van, driving through (seemingly) countless countries. Today, we can still read the 40-page typed itinerary for the entire trip, with each day showing places to visit, potential restaurants, convenient hotels, suggestions from travel reviews, and even a few after-the-fact hints and comments for “next time”. If anyone ever needed evidence that Nancy was highly organized and structured in everything she did, this travel itinerary surely puts any doubts to rest. Nancy and Stan continued to travel long after their retirement, visiting many countries, taking thousands of pictures, building lifelong memories, and returning home with a collection of souvenirs.

Nancy’s passion for gardening also started in childhood. That 1938 trip to Hawaii introduced her to tropical flowers, but it also was when her widowed father got remarried to a woman with whom Nancy and her two sisters did not always see eye-to-eye. Nancy claimed that her way of avoiding arguments with her stepmother was to vanish into the garden and busy herself with learning the secrets of plants and flowers. Nancy’s passion for gardening was evident in the three houses she shared with Stan. The division of labour was clear: Stan would build the gardens, fountains, ponds and anything else required; Nancy would fill those areas with all of the shrubs and flowers she could tend. The construction of the solaria in two of their homes was an added bonus for Nancy, where she could tend to her flowers—especially her famously fragile orchids—throughout the depths of Alberta’s winters. Nancy was always a little saddened and puzzled that none of her sons appeared to inherit her green thumb.

As much as Nancy loved travel and gardening, her biggest passion by far was her family - building it and keeping it together. When the six boys were young, family vacations were the obvious way to make sure that everyone was together at the same time and there were many of them, near and far. Skiing in the Rockies, swimming and camping in the Okanagan, and road trips to Quebec and California could all be managed by a mother with serious organizational expertise. But as the boys grew up and moved away from home, and then got married and started having children of their own, Nancy needed a new strategy for maintaining contact and for making sure she could cuddle the large and growing bunch of babies and older grandkids. Nancy and Stan started bringing the family together every two years for family reunions. These were not strictly “command” performances, but nor were they really “optional”. Whatever the rules of attendance, no Ragan lightly chose to miss them. Starting with Gimli, and then moving on to Mississauga, Honey Harbour, Cancun, Invermere, the Caribbean, Cuba, Banff, Ixtapa, and Parksville, these reunions have truly cemented Nancy’s family. She was never happier than when she could assemble the whole gang in one place to celebrate together and, as a result of these reunions, Nancy’s grandkids are a closely-knit generation and love hanging out with one another.

Most visits with Nancy, whether in small numbers or at a family reunion, involved a visit to the ice cream vendor. Nancy loved ice cream as a young girl. This began when her father would take her out for sundaes every Sunday. Unlike her gardening skills and enthusiasm, her lifelong love of ice cream has been successfully transmitted to all her kids and grandkids (and Stan was also a strong supporter of this habit!).

Nancy was never comfortable speaking in public, but at the 2022 Ragan reunion in Parksville, she gave a well-prepared speech to her family. Her words were dedicated to making sure that the assembled grandchildren all heard her view that Canada is a great country and that there is no sensible reason for any of them to live far away from home. Keeping the family together was paramount and subtlety was never Nancy’s style.

Nancy Dora Ragan was remarkably energetic and healthy her entire life. In June of 2023, her five boys spent a few days with her, walking along the Bow River in Canmore and fishing for rainbow trout, one of her favourite activities. Her good health was clear to all. As was usually the case on her fishing trips, however, the food and conversation were more successful than the actual fishing. One week before the entire family was gathering to celebrate her 100th birthday, Nancy was weakened from a fall and was taken to the hospital, where the birthday party was eventually held. But her health quickly declined further, and she died peacefully a few weeks later.

In death, as in life, Nancy was straightforward, clear, and organized; and she was always ready to get onto the next thing. Lingering was never part of her plan.

Condolences, memories, and photos may be shared and viewed with Nancy’s family here.

In living memory of Nancy Ragan, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Fish Creek, 14441 Bannister Road SE, Calgary, Ab t2x 3j3, Telephone: 403-256-9575.