Rhonda Feduck. Roni. Roni-Lou. Rhonda Kristi. Help Me Rhonda. Mom.
Rhonda was all these and a few more. Perhaps growing up in Lake Erie’s Port Colborne as one of six siblings in a post-war army bungalow, three kids per bedroom — one lone bathroom for eight — required a certain fluidity. And independence.
Rhonda’s late mom and dad were William (Bill) Feduck and Dorothy (aka Mickey, nee Coghlan). They had 16 siblings between them. Bill’s sister Nell married Mickey’s brother Jimmy. It was like The Waltons. Rhonda, second-born and eldest daughter, and her siblings arrived on Merritt Parkway at 18-month intervals: Randy (Jan), Rhonda, Mark (Marie), Todd (Terry), Jill Johnston and Luann (Lawrence). They had a dozen kids between them. Those kids have kids every year now. Watching the ritual Feduck attempt to place the latest doings among so many permutations of distant cousins, errant nieces and possibly-lost relations is always entertaining.
So family was Rhonda’s anchor, always. She adored the nieces and nephews and cousins and babies and hung rapt to every far-flung birth, drama and milestone. But Port Colborne never had a chance of keeping her.
By 17, with applauding notices for roles with school and amateur productions around Niagara, Rhonda was on a Greyhound solo to New York City for an audition, slipping into a notorious jazz club underage. She dashed from finishing Port High to backpack Europe, returning five months later with change from her original $500.
Soon it was down the QEW to Toronto and the hard, wild and exhilarating life of a young working actress. So many shared apartments, so many tables to wait on. Rhonda’s stage, film and television credits as Rhonda Kristi include appearing in Saint Carmen of the Main at Tarragon. The list is long. She is perhaps most recognized these days by the younger set for playing pregnant Spike’s supportive mom in Degrassi Junior High.
In 1986, Rhonda married jazz pianist Peter Dick in Toronto. Son Matthew (Masa) arrived in 1990; son Benjamin in 1996 — the prides of her life. Later, as a single mom, Rhonda largely stepped back from the unpredictable acting world. She worked a variety of gigs over the years, including her organizing and cleaning service, Help Me Rhonda. She remained a passionate supporter of live theatre, jazz, dance and film. She nurtured old friendships and built layers of new ones into a sprawling network of disparate people and experiences. Few who knew the Value Village fashionista could foresee her late love of the Bruce Trail.
Rhonda spent her last 30+ years in Toronto’s East End, the last 15+ years with longtime fiancé Dan Smith, an ex-Toronto Star journalist, often with his sons Patrick Smith (Liz) and Francis Wellesley, plus her Ben and drop-in Matt, plus the beloved Ladies of Oakcrest Ave. and all the others from her many worlds. It was another busy little house.
Rhonda had a yen for the unexpected, an eagerness to be delighted, even and sometimes especially with the oddities of the everyday. She was feisty. You did not casually double-dog-dare Rhonda to do anything. C. S. Lewis wrote of his lost wife in A Grief Observed: “She liked more things and liked them more than anyone I have known.” That’s it.
In mid-January, an abdominal ailment was abruptly diagnosed as advanced cancer. She handled those final weeks with all her Rhonda grace, humour and spirit in full flower. She said she felt most proud and happy at what fine young men her sons have grown into. Rhonda died peacefully in their arms on March 31 at Sunnybrook Hospital’s palliative wing.
The family is deeply grateful for the compassionate care she received there and at Michael Garron Hospital, particularly from the nurses, staff and doctors attached to Sunnybrook’s acute care ward C2, where Rhonda spent most of March. You folks are amazing.
Cremation has taken place. A Toronto memorial will be held later this year, date to be determined.