LOIS JEAN ANNAND - EULOGY
Mom/Mum/Grandma/Great Grandma/Lois Jean Annand was born on February 6, 1926 at her home in Merrickville, Ontario. Mom was a small-town girl – the Merrickville sign always said population 900 no matter when we visited – a small town girl who went to the big city of Toronto and ended up in Oshawa.
Let me tell you a bit about her life.
Mom did well in school and won a scholarship to Queen’s University to do her first year of Nursing Science. The Bachelor of Nursing Science at the time required a first year at university, followed by 3 years of training at a hospital, followed by a final year at university. Mom completed the first year of nursing science and the 3 years of training at Toronto General Hospital. NUMEROUS stories came out of Mom’s time at TGH. Working 6 days a week, she seemed to get a lot of fun things accomplished on that 7th day! She continued to get together with her classmates until she was in her 90s!
Mom started her 5th year back at Queen’s, but after 2 weeks of school, she decided she wanted to get out into the workforce as a Registered Nurse and earn some money. So she sent the tuition money back to her Mom and Dad in Merrickville and suggested they put it toward getting an indoor washroom so they didn’t have to keep using the outhouse! (this must have been about 1947)
Mom started in private duty nursing. But one weekend, as she was passing through Oshawa on the train on her way home, she thought of General Motors and wondered if they might need a plant nurse. So she jumped off the train, went to personnel and was hired on the spot. One of the perks of being a young plant nurse at the time was that one of her duties was to do the annual physicals of all of the players on the Oshawa Generals hockey team (they all worked in the plant at the time).
She lived at the YWCA in Oshawa for those years as a plant nurse. Lots more stories came out of this time in her life. She played tennis at the Oshawa Tennis Club and a man, James Bruce Annand, also played there. As he told it, he looked up and saw the most beautiful woman on the tennis courts. Dad, being so shy, likely had to wait for Mom to ask him out. They married in 1952 and started their family in 1953. This put an end to her nursing career at GM as women were not allowed to work once they were married. And Mom was fine with this. Just think – if she hadn’t gotten off that train in Oshawa, none of us kids and grandkids and great-grandkids would be here today!
Some points brought up so far might point to the fact that our family was a matriarchy. Mom’s mom was a schoolteacher, ruling a one-room schoolhouse with 8 grades. And Mom ruled the roost at our home. She and Dad brought up their family of 3 girls (Sue, Mary and Jane) and 2 boys (Bruce and Bob) to be very equal (right down to the number of grapes we got for dessert).
From the moment we could understand it, we knew that she was putting away money for each of us to go to university, not just the boys. And she started saving for this in the 1950’s! Not a lot of women believed in higher education for their daughters back then.
This leads me to the “cleaning lady money”. At the time I could NOT understand the concept, but instead of hiring and paying for a cleaning lady, Mom did all of the work herself and “paid” herself for it. Every time she cleaned the house, she put away the amount she would have paid a cleaning lady. She washed and ironed Dad’s work shirts and put away the money she would have spent on sending them out for cleaning. You might laugh at saving 50 cents a shirt but with that money, Mom bought the land for our cottage on Balsam Lake, the cottage, a motorboat, and numerous other things over the years. She was very wise and careful with money and because of that, our family continues to enjoy the things she saved for. Mom loved the cottage and spent lots of summers there. She always enjoyed it when we brought the next generations up to Balsam.
As well as the cottage, Mom enjoyed quite a few sailing adventures with Dad on their Tanzer 22 travelling to the Thousand Islands and, once, up the Rideau all the way to Ottawa.
Christmas was always a special time for our family growing up and Mom kept that going when we were married with kids. Every Christmas Eve we would gather at Mom and Dad’s place and have a great meal, with Bob and the “Western Annands” joining us when they could. Christmas Eve dinners at 945 Pinecrest are remembered fondly by her grandkids and their spouses. They continued until Mom was 92 and moved into Harmony Hill Retirement Home.
Great sadness impacted Mom’s life when our brother Bruce died of cancer in 1986. She and Dad cared for him in his apartment in Vancouver while he was ill, showing their inner strength and love.
Another great thing about Mom was her phenomenal memory and mind. (Although Sue reminded me that she and the rest of the family did once walk out of a restaurant forgetting me in my high chair!) She could remember so many interesting stories from her past that she was able to give us an amazingly colourful and detailed understanding of what her life used to be like. To hear all those stories was a treasure. Mom, along with her sister Muriel and her parents endured not only the depression, when her parents would run a tab at their grocery store for anyone in need, but also World War II, when she watched her friends go off to war. I feel these hardships made that generation stronger. She was 97 when she finally decided to rest.
Mom was a very strong and good person, and she taught us all to be that way. As Jessamine (one of her granddaughters) said, “we are all slowly turning into Grandma”. What a great legacy to leave us!
