Obituary of Rhoda Elisabeth Mitchell

October 21, 1983 – Edmonton, Alberta

October 11, 2024 – Calgary, Alberta

Rhoda Elisabeth Mitchell, mother, sister, daughter, friend, advocate, campaigner, intersectional feminist, Dutch Blitz aficionado, and coffee connoisseur, passed away on Friday, October 11, 2024, at the age of 40.

Rhoda was born on October 21, 1983, in Edmonton, AB, to the delight of her parents, Alice and Bill Mitchell, and her older sisters, Ruth and Sheona. Shortly after, she was whisked away to the family home in the mountains of Peru where she lived until she was four. The family relocated to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Rhoda started school wearing a bright purple tie and a grey dress. Her education continued in Quito, Ecuador, when she was seven years old, where the family lived just 15 minutes south of the equator. The next destination in Rhoda’s international adventure was a move to Calgary, Canada, where she started junior high and went on to complete high school. Throughout her school years in Calgary, she developed a passion for the clarinet and forged lifelong friends in band. She was a talented clothing designer, and her family was thrilled to find she also had a flair for interior design, freshening up dowdy bedrooms and dark basements on a shoestring budget.

Having finished high school, Rhoda enrolled at the University of Calgary where her considerable intellectual rigour paired with her growing concern for people on the margins underpinned her studies in Social Work. During her bachelor’s degree in social work, she returned to Ecuador, spending transformative months in Riobamba supporting orphaned children and babies. She rounded out her undergraduate studies with a semester in Pune, India, learning from local equity and development practices.

Following in the footsteps of her older sisters, Rhoda embarked on a CIDA Youth Internship. Her posting was with the international NGO Oxfam-Québec in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima. It was here that she left a significant part of her heart, working at Centro Mujer Teresa de Jesús, supporting gender violence prevention programs, and ultimately establishing a women’s shelter, which was later named after her. She returned to Canada to complete her master’s degree in international social work before working for five years back in Peru with Oxfam-Québec, developing the Gender Justice Program for Oxfam in Peru, where much of her work focused on gender policy.

Along the way, she met Jesus Llerena Reyes, and they married in the surf town of Máncora, Peru, in 2011, joined by Canadian and Peruvian family and friends in a ceremony that included dancing, fire eating, an outbreak of gastroenteritis, and a scruffy dog named Duque. After travelling through Colombia, Jamaica, and Cuba, they moved to Calgary in 2014, where Rhoda worked at the Women’s Centre of Calgary. Thinking back on her time at the Women’s Centre, Rhoda reflected, “One of the programs I am most proud of is my work developing the Women in Leadership Program.” Her colleagues remarked that she was unflappable in times of crisis.

Always a lover of babies and children, Rhoda was beside herself with excitement when she discovered she was going to become an auntie, which happened with the arrival of Destiny, the daughter of Sheona and her wife Kendra Mitchell-Foster. Soon after, Amilie and Jaiden arrived in short succession.

It was an incredibly special announcement when Rhoda shared with family and friends that she was pregnant, and Adrian William Llerena Mitchell was born on June 26, 2016. Rhoda described the months following his birth as the best time in her life.

Rhoda, Jesus, and baby Adrian travelled to Peru in February of 2017 to introduce Adrian to his paternal grandmother Ysabel Reyes Mori, and aunt Karlita Llerena Reyes. The joyous, celebratory trip changed in an instant when Rhoda suffered a rupture of an arteriovenous malformation while in Lima, or, as Rhoda would later put it, her brain exploded. What followed was a period of hospitalization, a transfer back to Canada for treatment, and a long journey to recovery.

Sometime later, Rhoda became unwell again. This time more gradually, and what followed was a long period of chronic pain and unwellness, punctuated by hospital admissions and invasive treatments. Through all of this, she showed up in every way she could for her incredible little boy, Adrian, who was the light of her life; the center of her world. Rhoda’s courage and determination to be here and to be well, was extraordinary. Even in her moments of greatest pain, she lamented that not everyone had access to the healthcare and services she did. The fight for a better world was in her all the time.

In her short life, Rhoda was so many things to so many people and lived a life full of rich experiences. She will be remembered for many things, but her clarity of vision, even in her own deepest suffering, for a fairer, more equitable world, will spur each of us to do our part for peace and justice.

A Celebration of Rhoda’s Life will be held at McInnis & Holloway (Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street N, Calgary, AB) on Friday, October 18, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. Reception to follow in the Hospitality Centre at the Funeral Home. All are very welcome to attend.

Family and friends who are unable to attend in person are invited to join Rhoda’s Celebration of Life streamed live (see link below) on the day of the service. For those who are unable to view live, a recording of the service will be posted.

If friends so desire, in lieu of flowers, we know Rhoda would like you to go out and smash the patriarchy. Memorial tributes may be made directly by e-transfer to sonrisaderhoda@gmail.com, which will be donated to Centro Mujer Teresa de Jesús in Lima, Peru, in her honour.

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

In living memory of Rhoda Mitchell, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street North, Calgary, AB T2E 2V6, Telephone: 403-276-2296.

Click Here to Sign the Digital Guest Book and Watch Rhoda's Celebration of Life