A Graveside Service will take place on Friday, July 5, 2024 at 1 p.m. at the Dryden Cemetery with Ora Semeniuk officiating.
A Celebration of Life will follow at The Centre from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Valoree May MacKinnon
May 21, 1956 – October 26, 2023
It is with profound sadness that the family of Valoree May MacKinnon announces her passing and the end of her journey with us on October 26, 2023. We will mourn her with an enormous emptiness left in our lives that shall be forevermore filled with memories of a gentle and kind life well-lived.
Valoree spent her most formative years in North Dryden in the MacKinnon Pioneer Street home. She was surrounded by a big family, with numerous cousins and all the fun that goes along with that. She often reveled in the memories and exploits from all the family visits with her MacKinnon cousins and especially the girl cousins who were like sisters to her. A prouder MacKinnon there never was.
Valoree worked at the Central Hotel restaurant in her adolescence and built a lifelong, cherished friendship with Heather. She maintained a nostalgic love of their French fries and gravy, their liver and onions, and was genuinely tearful when it closed.
She attended Dryden High School and graduated from the University of Manitoba with a bachelor’s degree and achieved her teaching degree from Lakehead University. Miss/ Mademoiselle MacKinnon was a teacher her entire adult life and supply taught from the moment of her retirement right up until two months before her death. It was a career that provided her a great sense of fulfillment, and she touched the lives of entire generations of students – first off in Eagle River, then Hillcrest, Oxdrift, Wabigoon, and Open Roads. She was a caring staff member who mentored numerous teachers and was always willing to help a colleague. She remembered every single student. She had a kind word for every single one and if she didn’t have a kind word, you’d never hear it.
She loved the janitors and all school support staff and volunteers because she recognized that they were good people, doing hard and very important jobs. Valoree was a devout union member and staunch believer in collective rights and social justice.
She loved vibrant colours, and broaches, and fancy clothes and velour and flowers and flavoured coffee. She loved tea parties and the endless beauty of nature and knick-knacks and arts and crafts and Nativity Scenes. She loved decorating her doorstep on the various holidays because the kids might get a kick out of it, or it might bring some passerby a moment of joy.
She loved food of all kinds and cooking elaborate, delicious multi-course meals and desserts and picture-perfect pies and cakes and cookies for the people she loved. There was usually enough on each occasion to feed each person three times over despite the fact she refused to eat leftovers. She could always be counted on to contribute to a family meal, or to share her recipes.
She loved old rock and roll, a good cocktail, a gin and tonic or a beer. She loved homemade spiked eggnog on Boxing Day and a dram of Drambuie to commemorate the loss of and love held for those who came before her.
Valoree’s sense of humour was one of her gifts. She delighted in witty, well-pointed jibes, thoughtful sarcasm, and running people over the coals a bit and being ribbed back. Her playful, borderline inappropriate banter made her smile and laugh throughout her life and even in her last days.
Valoree was a dear, dear friend to every four legged being to ever walk the earth, regardless of the number of legs, or eyes, they actually possessed. She fed stray cats religiously for her entire adult life. She gave a home to many dogs who had nowhere else to go. She gave the deer vegetable scraps although she knew she never should, and then was red-faced cursing furious when they continued to clear out her flowers or anything else she planted every year.
Valoree’s legacy is one of genuine empathy and determined consideration of the feelings and needs of others. She was a bleeding heart if ever there were. She was a defender of the downtrodden, the bullied, the unfortunate, the underdog. She had compassion for the poor, the sad and the overlooked. She had generosity for others and would do without if others were in need.
Valoree leaves to mourn her beloved brother Martin and his wife Debbie; her dearest nephew Neil (Kim), her adoring niece Melissa (Ian), and their children Lola and Quinn and Eve and Archer. Valoree’s passing will leave a hole in family gatherings as she will also be missed by numerous cousins and other family members, her dear friend Ian McKenzie, as well as her extended Wilkins family. Her special friends, Ora, Jenn, Sheryl, Gail and Betty as well as her many colleagues will remember her fondly and with love.
She was predeceased by her parents Margaret and Duncan MacKinnon. Many aunts, uncles and cousins also passed before her.
The family is forever grateful to the staff at Dryden and Thunder Bay regional hospitals. The professional, compassionate, and considerate care of her nurses, frank, honest assessments and input of her physicians as well as the kitchen staff who truly cared for her well-being with the meals they made for her. They maintained her dignity and their efforts are greatly appreciated and will never be forgotten.
The outpouring of support, kind thoughts and outreach of friends and former students and teaching colleagues brought both Valoree and her family tremendous comfort as she approached the end of her journey. The daily visits from her closest friends and family and the laughs and love and tears shared in those moments were so very touching to us all. You are all so loved and cherished.
As per Valoree’s request, a celebration of life will be held in early summer which was her favourite time of the year.
In lieu of flowers donations in her memory can be made to the Second Chance Pet Network online at: http://www.secondchancepetnetwork.ca/donate.html Or to Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities to support the participation of youth in sport Online at: https://jumpstart.canadiantire.ca/pages/donate
Condolences may be posted at www.dcfh.ca
Arrangements entrusted to
the Dryden Community Funeral Home,
249 Grand Trunk Avenue, Dryden, ON P8N 2X3