Obituary of Doreen Macdonald

In memoriam: Doreen Isobel Macdonald (nee Mathers) – Feb 6 th 1927 – March 30 th 2020 I obviously don’t really know much about my mother’s childhood or life before I joined the family in 1961. She was born in Delisle, Saskatchewan. They had a cottage at Lake Waskesiu where she and her sister, Phyllis would spend all summer with their mother, Grace. Her dad, Robert J Mathers, was a principal and later a much-loved math teacher at Central Tech School in Saskatoon and her mom was a former teacher. So she was very good at taking tests. She was into Biology and all that science stuff and so she made it into pre-Med in the late 40’s in Saskatoon. While she was at it she captured the heart of my dad, Frank. They got married 27 June 1951 in Saskatchewan so it rained and snowed and hailed and I think there was some sleet too; the minister’s car got stuck and he almost didn’t make it to the ceremony. They completed their Medical degrees in Ontario; Doreen was at U of T. After graduating in 1950 they practiced medicine in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan, where their first daughter, Elizabeth Clare was born. As a veteran, my father’s blunt diagnoses were sometimes unpopular with his patients. Soon, he decided to go into training to become a Pathologist. So they moved to Ontario where Frank did graduate work in Pathology. Doreen went into family practice with a fellow classmate and worked delivering the babies of the baby boom, working at hospitals throughout the GTA to get enough maternity beds to handle all her patients. When she had Lorne , her second child, she decided she needed a job where she got some sleep at night! So she went to U of T to study Radiology. She trained with some of the pioneers of the subject at Sunnybrook and other local hospitals. Sylvia was the third child in 1958. They were founding members of St. Stephen’s-on-the-Hill United Church in Lorne Park, Mississauga. Dr. Bruce McLeod was their first minister. I was the fourth child in 1961. By the time I was a year old, the family had moved to Ghana, West Africa for two years to teach medicine. Frank almost died of hepatitis while we were there. It was really HOT. So Doreen and Frank looked for respite and we wound up in Kampala, Uganda for 4 years. Doreen did Radiology while Frank taught Pathology at Makerere University. For a time she was the only radiologist in the country! She loved living and working in Africa, making friends with the locals and people from other countries who were working in the countries we lived in. Doreen said after she found out all the cuts of meat were the same price in the market that she started sharing recipes for steak instead of recipes for hamburger. She sewed most of her clothing and that of her children. At least the fabrics available were to her liking and she made many flattering outfits. We returned to Canada in 1968 and Doreen continued to support orphanages and other NGO’s long after. In 1972, Doreen and Frank helped Asian medical students expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin Dada find placement (and credit for previous studies!) in Canadian medical schools and one of them wound up marrying my sister. When the kids began to leave for university my parents opened their home for a foster-child and there was always some lonely soul who would join us for dinner on Sundays, a family ritual. By that time the family had bought a farm property in Prince Edward County. An orchard was planted and 2 acres of black raspberries were cultivated. There was a lot of grass to cut and a lot of canning and preserving and freezing. Doreen showed us how to do it all. Even after Frank died in 1979, she carried on as a gentlewoman farmer. Doreen was an active campaigner as a member of the Physicians Against Nuclear War, participated in the University Women’s Club and was a member of the Council of Canadians pretty much from its inception. She continued her personal growth through regular studies in Christian theology and attended Elderhostels and retreats to expand her horizons. She was a patron of the arts and she and I shared season’s tickets to the theatre and symphony for years. The family travelled frequently, usually staying with friends made in African from Europe and the USA unless it was a visit to a legion of relatives. In 1985, Doreen remarried and started a whole new chapter in her life with Peter Zaharuk and his 5 kids. It lasted longer than her first marriage and Doreen managed the role of step-mother and grandmother with grace. In later life Doreen continued as an active member of the church she founded, sang in the choir and was active on committees to ensure the health of her community. She was a generous patron of any charity you can name and many you have never heard of. She helped sponsor refugees from Viet Nam as well as from Africa. She was fiercely proud of her children and grand-children, both by blood and by marriage. She never tired of helping others. Her life was not without tragedy. Both Lorne and Sylvia pre-deceased her, Sylvia passing only a few weeks before she did after a brief struggle with colon cancer. Doreen was never a champion sportsman; the only prize I know she won was having two devoted husbands for over 25 years each in one lifetime. She was known to be assertive and had strong opinions, which was not commonly acceptable for women of her time. She was a person of goodwill. She died peacefully on 30 March 2020. I will not be the only one who misses her. Jock Macdonald