BA (McMaster)
1919 to 2022
In her 104th year, Wife of Arthur William (Bill) Jefferies (1915-2002), mother of John (Sheryn) of Orillia, James (1947-2017) of Oakville, David (Gail) of Collingwood, Grandmother to David (Andrea) of Orillia, Kristin (Patrick) of Chelsea Quebec, Kathryn of Orillia, and Amy (Darrin) of Orillia, Kimberly of Sault Ste. Marie, Erica (Owen) of Pickering, Emily of Ancaster, Great Grandmother to Aria Jefferies of Orillia, Tegan and Ross Henry of Chelsea, Quebec, Bella Francis of Orillia, Sadie Davis of Orillia, Annie and Helen McCarty of Sault Ste. Marie, & Jackson Reid of Pickering.
Dorothy was born at 123 Carrick Avenue in Hamilton only child to James and Amy Tasker on Valentine’s Day, 1919 during the world wide flu pandemic that followed the end of WW1. During the 1920’s she suffered three life threatening illness which required her to be quarantined, for typhoid fever, scarlet fever and measles. She attended Adelaide Hoodless Public School and Delta Collegiate and then McMaster University in Hamilton. She learned to play piano and sang in church choirs and school performances from a young age. Following graduation from McMaster University, she undertook voice lessons in Hamilton and passed voice examination from the Toronto Conservatory of Music (forerunner of the Royal Conservatory).
She met her future husband at Ontario Teachers College in Toronto As an only child, she had a very close relationship with her numerous first cousins the Furmingers, Bachers, and Stewarts in St. Catharine's. These close friendships remained well into her adult life. Each summer during the 1920’s & 30's she would return with her mother to assist in the Furminger family farm harvest, packing peaches and other fruit for shipment to Toronto from Port Dalhousie. She was pregnant with her first son John, when her husband left for military service in England. When he returned as an officer to oversee troops guarding the power installations at Niagara she lived near him at Niagara on the Lake. Following the war she lived in Iroquois, Ontario with Bill's first teaching job. When Bill was hired to teach at Upper Canada College, they returned to live in Toronto on Glengrove Avenue where her two sons, Jim and David were born.
During this time she earned income as a paid soloist at several churches. Dorothy then followed her husband to summer camps, Haliburton, Kilcoo and Taylor Statten and many car camping expeditions. With some regret she moved to 1304 Cumnock Crescent in Oakville in 1952 when her husband took up his teaching position at the newly expanded Oakville Trafalgar High School. The isolation and lack of friends in Trafalgar Township on the eastern edge of the small town of Oakville made her long for life in Toronto. Activities with the University Women's Club, and singing performances with Oakville Arts & Crafts and at the Oakville Club became some of her primary community social activities.
She was a supply teacher at Oakville High Schools from time to time. Dorothy and Bill maintained a bountiful vegetable garden on their one acre property. Over her 70+ years in her adopted town she developed many close lifelong friends and learned to love Oakville. Starting in the 1960’s she travelled extensively in Europe, and after her husband retired she led tour groups for the Retired Teachers of Ontario. When her middle son Jim was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 1960's she and her husband Bill began a desperate search for new and emerging treatments with hope of a cure. She travelled to New York City with Jim in an attempt to achieve an alternate diagnosis. In the mid 1970's she again travelled with Jim to Saskatoon for mega vitamin treatments with Dr. Abram Hoffer.
When none of their efforts to return her son Jim to full health were successful she worked with her husband Bill and worked closely with Dr.Philip Seeman at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto into research for the causes and cure for Schizophrenia. They worked together in establishing the Friends of Schizophrenics with the first meetings held at St. Jude’s Church in Oakville. They then worked to establish the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario and for Canada and as well as family based schizophrenia societies in provinces across Canada. They helped in founding the World Schizophrenia Fellowship. They provided continuing support for their son Jim throughout his life. After Bill’s death she moved into the Granary Condominium in Oakville and there made many new and close friends that sustained her in the last 20 years of her life.
She was an active member of the Oakville Opera Guild. Her son Jim would visit her every weekend becoming her regular companion and support during these years. Her Christian faith and dedication and love for her family remains an inspiration to all her knew her. She spent many summer weeks on Lake of Bays, swimming at the Jefferies family cottage and joining son John to attend the Festival of the Sound each year in Parry Sound. She maintained her driver’s license until the age of 100. Following a fall in October of this year, she was admitted to the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital and then transferred to Champlain Manor in Orillia where she died on December 3rd of natural causes. A special thanks to Auriel Haenisch, Linda Crone and Nancy McNicoll of Oakville for their wonderful assistance in her last years.
A funeral service with be held at St. Jude’s Church, William Street Oakville on December 22nd at 1:30 pm and immediately following there will be an internment where her ashes will be placed in the St. Jude’s Memorial Garden. Following the service there will be a reception in Victoria Hall for a celebration of her life with the Jefferies Family. Donations can be made to the Schizophrenia Society of Canada or the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Kanata, Ontario.