SHIRLEY HELEN MCKEAN LAKING

SHIRLEY HELEN MCKEAN LAKING

LAKING, BSP, SHIRLEY HELEN MCKEAN Shirley died peacefully at home in Toronto on July 27, 2018 at age 91 after facing illness for most of the last years of her life.

Her alert and communicative self didn’t cease to exist till the end, just the way she lived her life. Shirley was predeceased by her beloved husband of 63 years, Robert Therol “Bud” Laking and cherished cousins Maxine Roberta Marcotte (Ray), Gordon Rogers (Evelyn) and Barbara Elaine Atkinson (Harold). She is survived by her daughter Roberta, son-in-law Robert Kananaj and great-nephew Emanuele, sisters Eleanor Finlayson (John), Maurine Smith (Stewart) and cousin Caroline Peck (John). She was the loved “Auntie Shirley” to generations of Rogers nieces and nephews, “Nëne Shirley” to Emanuele and, most recently, “Big Auntie” to her caregivers. Shirley was born May 22, 1927 in Regina, SK, the oldest child of Alexander Firman McKean and Lydia Muriel McKean (nee Rogers).

The McKean and Rogers families were part of the wave of homesteaders who came to Saskatchewan from the American midwest in the early 1900s. She grew up on her parents’ wheat farm near Rouleau, with a 360-degree view of the sky and across the fields to the horizon. From the kitchen window she could see the skyline of Regina thirty miles away across the level prairie. All her life Shirley took pride in being a “Saskatchewan farm girl.” She helped with farm chores from an early age, gathering eggs from beady-eyed hens, and churning butter when she got older. These were an important supplement the family income during the lean times of the Dirty Thirties. She started school at Lily View, a one-room schoolhouse where for a while she was the only girl, soon learning to stand up for herself. She excelled academically, eventually graduating from Rouleau High School as a winner of the Governor General’s Bronze Medal. Shirley’s parents and grandparents came from a long line of firm believers in higher education and professional training for girls, who were expected to be able support themselves and, if necessary, their children. An avid reader and polymath since childhood, Shirley chose to go to Saskatoon to study Pharmacy at the University of Saskatchewan, graduating in 1948. During her first winter at U of S she was knocked off her feet at the local skating rink by a six-foot tall redhead who claimed it was just his “hockey reflexes” kicking in as they passed each other. He promptly enlisted his friends to help him comb through all the student photos until this mystery girl was identified. For their first date “Bud” Laking and Shirley went to see a student production of Romberg’s “The Student Prince,” a memory they treasured lifelong. They were married in Rouleau after Shirley’s graduation in 1948; Shirley worked as a pharmacist in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw while Bud finished his B. Comm. In 1951 with his degree completed, Bud joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and this meant a new beginning for Shirley. Life in the RCAF meant picking up and moving at short notice: Moose Jaw, Portage la Prairie (where daughter Roberta was born), Ottawa, then in 1960 just after they had bought their first house a sudden opportunity to go to NATO base 1 Wing in France. Bud, Shirley and Roberta spent the next four years living in a small town in Belgium far from all other family except Eleanor and John Finlayson, who were living comparatively close by in Paris and could visit back and forth. Roberta attended the local school in Virton.

Holidays were spent exploring Europe by car, though within limits: members of NATO forces were expected to stay well away from countries behind the Iron Curtain. In Europe of the early 1960s in chilling contrast with peaceful Canada, stops for military and police checkpoints were commonplace, with submachine guns pointed through the car windows. The Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis showed Shirley some harsh realities of geopolitical planning: in the event of nuclear war or Russian invasion, any Canadian child such as Roberta would be given false identity papers and be sheltered by the local Belgian population. Their fathers would presumably be dead or fighting in the war, and their mothers would be left to fend for themselves. The next posting, with a different sort of chill, was to a base near Brandon, MN where the wind never stopped and winter temperatures could hover for days in the -30s. Bud was transferred back to Ottawa in 1966 and they lived in the same house for the next 45 years. Shirley got her Ontario Pharmacist’s licence and went back to work, using her income to support Roberta’s education, numerous house improvements, many quiet good deeds and eventually a carefully tended portfolio. After retirement, Shirley and Bud spent summers in Saskatchewan visiting their aging parents, their many friends and relatives. Winters were spent in Ottawa volunteering at the Rideau Veterans Home and 410 William Barker VC Wing, Royal Canadian Air Force Association. Shirley was an early adopter of home computers and related gadgetry. She used these to compile databases of old family records and letters and various family trees, which she shared with anyone who showed interest. All her life she would ask every new acquaintance their name, which she would promptly memorize, and where they were from, which she could readily find on a map long before there was such a thing as the internet.

Shirley and Bud eventually moved to the Grenadier Residence in Toronto to be closer to Roberta and Robert. Bud died in 2013; Shirley remained at the Grenadier for another three years, when the house next door to Robert and Roberta became available. She moved in for Christmas 2015 and lived there, enjoying family dinner every day with Roberta, Robert and Emanuele. She enjoyed her porch swing, her garden, computer Solitaire, Turner Classic Movies and the doings of assorted local creatures who wandered through her open doors. From her bed she loved to watch the neighbours’ cats strolling along the fence outside her window and made sure she learned the names of each one.

The family wish to thank the staff of Toronto Central Palliative Care Network and Dorothy Ley Hospice, who helped maintain Shirley in comfort and dignity at home until the end of her life.

A funeral service will be held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Anglican Church, 151 Glenlake Avenue, Toronto, on Thursday, August 2nd at 11 a.m., reception to follow in the Guild Room. Interment of ashes and a celebration of the lives of both Shirley and Bud will take place in Regina, SK at a later date.