In memory of
Mary Susan MacDonald
June 18, 2020
Mary Susan MacDonald often found herself having to explain that she wasn't THAT Mary Macdonald (one of the hundreds with a similar name). She was the Mary Susan MacDonald born in The Town of Mount Royal, Montreal, educated in Montréal and Toronto and, since the late 1970’s, a proud Torontonian.
She was the unforgettable, brilliant and incandescent Mary Susan MacDonald. She was the continual learner who obtained her nursing degree at Royal Victoria Hospital of Nursing, her BA majoring in Philosophy at York University and then her Masters degree in Hospital Administration at the University of Toronto. When asked why she chose hospital administration, she answered that she couldn't think of any system more challenging, more complex or more rewarding. She then, at 27 years old, became a senior executive at Montréal’s Children Hospital followed shortly thereafter by becoming the youngest ever, first female, and first non-medical doctor V.P. of Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Kids’ in Toronto.
Upon leaving the healthcare sector in the 1990s, Mary Susan crafted a remarkable business career as a VP at the award-winning consultancy Gilmore and Associates helping global organizations excel. During this period, she also created a novel, practical ethics program “Ideals in Action, Integrating Values and Behaviour” for the Canadian Olympic Association. Later, from 2012 – 2020, she was a Board Director and stellar Vice President Communications, Mensa Canada.
These are but some of Mary Susan’s professional accomplishments. What they imply, but don't capture, is the incredible range of her interests, the intensity of her attention, the crystalline intelligence she brought to everything she did, the seeking and the humility with which she approached new challenges, the fierce devotion she had for those she loved (and she loved many) but none so much as her greatest love, her husband, Jim Mourgelas.
What is not captured in her CV is her distinctive laugh which was infectiously explosive, her witty, sophisticated cartoons (www.marytoons.com), her appreciation of all and anything jazz, her mastery of mah-jong, her love of muscle cars which she drove with Montréal-like aplomb during the 1980s and 90s, her unparalleled generosity of spirit, her capacity for enjoying food and eating her weight in volume at any sitting, her elegance and love of simple lines and good art, her passion for her nieces and nephews, her late-to-the-party devotion to all things MENSA, the great friends she met there and the loving husband she found, her rigorous adherence to a simple set of spiritual principles that guided her work, her relationships and her life. She titled the world with her pure spiritual heft. Mary Susan MacDonald changed the lives of uncountable people.
Mary was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer in the spring of 2019. She underwent aggressive chemotherapy; stopped it to get married that August in the most beautiful of ceremonies, underwent surgery in the winter of 2020 and believed utterly that she would survive and thrive. She died with her husband by her side on Thursday, June 18, 2020. There was no one more committed to life and no one more prepared for death. She will be missed beyond all measure.
The world is populated with those she loved - her husband, Jim Mourgelas and his family, her family, her sister Nita Reed and brother in law, Don, her brother Dan, her nephews, and their children, her most loving, constant friends, Myrna Quail, Lee-Anne McAlear and Jim Harris, her closest friends and the legions of people who had the privilege of standing in her bright and warming light.
In lieu of flowers please donate to the Mary Susan MacDonald Stomach Cancer Research Fund at The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation:
https://pmhf3.akaraisin.com/ui/MarySusan/donations/start?it=1&amt=100
A funeral and ‘Celebration of Life’ will take place at the earliest date when circumstances allow.
She was the unforgettable, brilliant and incandescent Mary Susan MacDonald. She was the continual learner who obtained her nursing degree at Royal Victoria Hospital of Nursing, her BA majoring in Philosophy at York University and then her Masters degree in Hospital Administration at the University of Toronto. When asked why she chose hospital administration, she answered that she couldn't think of any system more challenging, more complex or more rewarding. She then, at 27 years old, became a senior executive at Montréal’s Children Hospital followed shortly thereafter by becoming the youngest ever, first female, and first non-medical doctor V.P. of Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Kids’ in Toronto.
Upon leaving the healthcare sector in the 1990s, Mary Susan crafted a remarkable business career as a VP at the award-winning consultancy Gilmore and Associates helping global organizations excel. During this period, she also created a novel, practical ethics program “Ideals in Action, Integrating Values and Behaviour” for the Canadian Olympic Association. Later, from 2012 – 2020, she was a Board Director and stellar Vice President Communications, Mensa Canada.
These are but some of Mary Susan’s professional accomplishments. What they imply, but don't capture, is the incredible range of her interests, the intensity of her attention, the crystalline intelligence she brought to everything she did, the seeking and the humility with which she approached new challenges, the fierce devotion she had for those she loved (and she loved many) but none so much as her greatest love, her husband, Jim Mourgelas.
What is not captured in her CV is her distinctive laugh which was infectiously explosive, her witty, sophisticated cartoons (www.marytoons.com), her appreciation of all and anything jazz, her mastery of mah-jong, her love of muscle cars which she drove with Montréal-like aplomb during the 1980s and 90s, her unparalleled generosity of spirit, her capacity for enjoying food and eating her weight in volume at any sitting, her elegance and love of simple lines and good art, her passion for her nieces and nephews, her late-to-the-party devotion to all things MENSA, the great friends she met there and the loving husband she found, her rigorous adherence to a simple set of spiritual principles that guided her work, her relationships and her life. She titled the world with her pure spiritual heft. Mary Susan MacDonald changed the lives of uncountable people.
Mary was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer in the spring of 2019. She underwent aggressive chemotherapy; stopped it to get married that August in the most beautiful of ceremonies, underwent surgery in the winter of 2020 and believed utterly that she would survive and thrive. She died with her husband by her side on Thursday, June 18, 2020. There was no one more committed to life and no one more prepared for death. She will be missed beyond all measure.
The world is populated with those she loved - her husband, Jim Mourgelas and his family, her family, her sister Nita Reed and brother in law, Don, her brother Dan, her nephews, and their children, her most loving, constant friends, Myrna Quail, Lee-Anne McAlear and Jim Harris, her closest friends and the legions of people who had the privilege of standing in her bright and warming light.
In lieu of flowers please donate to the Mary Susan MacDonald Stomach Cancer Research Fund at The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation:
https://pmhf3.akaraisin.com/ui/MarySusan/donations/start?it=1&amt=100
A funeral and ‘Celebration of Life’ will take place at the earliest date when circumstances allow.