Lillian Mcdonald

Lillian Blanche McDonald (né e McKee)

Lillian passed away peacefully at the age of 94 on Thursday, December 14, 2017, at Hillel Lodge , Ottawa .

Lillian was one of nine children born and raised in the original family farmstead, near Listowel , Ontario. When she was a young girl, her father died, and the family had to run the farm during the depression years and beyond. During WWII, in her late teens, she moved to Toronto on her own to seek employment and met Sandy McDonald at a recruitment station. They raised four boys , all of whom she was fiercely proud.

Lillian was an original. She embraced the idea of the modern women. In the 60s , s he began working outside the home while raising a family . L ater, as a single woman, she became a successful real estate agent. S he bought a cottage on Jack Lake where she delighted in catching bass . For a time, she lived in Guelph working at Ampersand Printing for her son Michael. ?At seventy , she fearlessly moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, by herself not knowing the language or having personal contacts. ?She stayed for ten happy years before returning to her family in Guelph and then Ottawa. Lillian was generous with a spicy sense of humour , and loved life and family. She was an avid reader and liberal in her views; and her apple pies were second to none. She was stoic, proud and showed strong will and independent determination (characteristic of her own McKee family) right to the end .

Lillian will be dearly missed by her sons, David ( Nasrin ) of Ottawa ; Peter ( Sylvie) of Toronto ; Michael ( Carolyn) of Guelph ; Joseph ( Monique) of Ottawa , and her brother John McKee of Listowel . Grandmother to Omid, Sara, Damian, Nicole and André and g reat g randmother to Stella, Leo, Lilly, Eva and Sloane. She is p redeceased by her parents, Blanche ( née Humphries) and Alexander McKee, and her husband Joseph (Sandy) McDonald , as well as her sister, Doreen Neill, and her brothers Jim, Gerald, Russell, Bud, Archie, a nd David.

The family will hold a celebration to honour Lillian' s life in Guelph in spring 2018 (place and date to be determined) . In her memory, donations to Hillel Lodge https://www.hillel-ltc.com , her home for six years , would be appreciated .