Donna Stewart used the proceeds of her house sale to fund low-cost housing in Vancouver
Donna MacDougall was a brilliant child who loved to read and skipped grades in school. But she also had to endure her father's drinking and violent rages. She saved up and earned scholarships to attend university. There, she thrived, trying out for the University of Toronto women's hockey team, taking classes with Northrop Frye and earning an English Honours degree at Victoria College. She also discovered a Christian faith that healed her and inspired her to care for others.
She met Gordon Stewart working at a summer camp. The handsome, athletic camp leader had a kind heart, a deep faith and a great sense of fun. Donna was immediately smitten and the feeling was mutual. They married in 1955 and moved to Orillia for their first teaching jobs. Donna and Gordon trusted and respected each other and were each other's best advocate, support and friend.
Almost immediately pregnant with Ruth, the first of five children, Donna had to quit teaching. She soon gave birth to Cathy, John, Elizabeth and Alicia.
In 1963, the family moved to Winnipeg for Gordon's work. Donna breast-fed her five children when formula feeding was the norm, baked bread and taught her children to cook, sewed her own curtains, knit beautiful sweaters and made room at the table for many a lonely soul. (She later said of those years, 'The CBC kept me sane!') Spending summers at Manitoba Pioneer Camp where Gordon was camp director, Donna mentored staff members and bravely shepherded her children on family canoe trips.
Donna returned to teaching when her youngest reached school age. She taught Canadian women writers long before CanLit was canonical and earned an MA on Emily Carr's writings in the 1970s.
In 1981 the family moved to North Vancouver when Gordon was offered a new job. There were no openings in teaching for Donna, so she took a pay cut to run the North Shore Women's Centre. Horrified by her clients' stories of abuse and limited options, she pivoted to a career as an eloquent and tireless advocate for women. At one rally she organized, someone in the crowd sneered, 'Who cares about the women and kids anyway?' Donna raised her fist and shouted fiercely, 'WE care!' It made the national news, but she was not posturing – she meant it.
Donna co-ordinated campaigns to regulate violent pornography and served on the National Action Committee for the Status of Women in the 1980s. She also ran for city council and the federal NDP. In the 1990s she helped women find work in the trades and developed resources to prevent elder-abuse. In her later years she took on affordable housing, served on multiple boards and started her own charitable society. In 2010, Donna received the BC Achievement Award and the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award. But Donna was always invested in people and not accolades.
Habitually honest and kind, Donna earned many lifelong friends. While she sometimes spoke before she thought and could be judgmental or reactive, Donna could also admit, mid-argument, 'Oh, well, that's true.' Whenever her children challenged her, she listened and tried to learn.
Donna followed the prophet Micah's teaching: Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. When Gordon required a decade of care for cancer and Parkinson's disease, she never flinched. When her youngest urgently needed a place to live with her three sons, Donna underwrote the lease. And when her own home tripled in value, she used the proceeds of its sale as seed-funding for affordable housing: At endless municipal meetings she fought for low-cost apartments for single mothers in a North Vancouver development – it was her proudest achievement.
Shortly after her 95th birthday, she fell and suffered a brain injury that led to seizures and a rapid decline. Over the next two months, she managed – on a good day – to vote in the provincial election from her hospital bed, to smile at visitors and to tell us that she loved us all and was not afraid to die.
Donna was caring, honest, impulsive, generous, intelligent and courageous. It was a gift to have known her.
Elizabeth Hodgson is Donna Stewart's daughter.
To submit a Lives Lived: lives@globeandmail.com
Lives Lived celebrates the everyday, extraordinary, unheralded lives of Canadians who have recently passed. To learn how to share the story of a family member or friend, go online to tgam.ca/livesguide
You can find obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
21 minutes ago
- CBC
Retired fighter pilot selling replica of P-40 Warhawk says it's like 'losing an old friend'
Wayne Foster spent much of his life chasing the horizon as a fighter pilot, but he could be facing his toughest battle yet: parting with the warbird he built by hand. At 88, Foster is selling one of his planes: a smaller-scale replica of a P-40 Warhawk with the Royal Air Force's 1940 Desert colours of the 112 Squadron. The asking price is $45,000. "It's like losing an old friend," he said, sitting in front of the plane stored inside a Quonset hut in Indus, Alta., a hamlet southeast of Calgary. Foster, who joined the Canadian Forces in 1956, served in the navy, spent three years in France and worked at an electronic warfare unit in Montreal for another four years. It was in the navy that he earned his nickname, Butch. "I got the name Butch from Butcher, from dogfighting, I guess," Foster said in an interview. "We had a couple of guys in the squadron whose name was Wayne. I got Butch and my wingman got Chopper." During his time, he said, they did a lot of dogfighting in Europe. Dogfighting is a series of tactical manoeuvres used in close-range aerial combat. "I learned how to dogfight fairly well ... by trial and error," he said. "Thankfully, I could do a lot of errors when no one was shooting at me." Foster also had a tour in Puerto Rico. He was transferred to the United States air force for three years, where he trained pilots on the art of dogfighting. "That was a wonderful tour. I flew the T-38 Talon — it goes like hell," he chuckled. Flying with an ace Foster said he remembers briefly sharing the sky with Chuck Yeager, an American flying ace and record-setting test pilot who, in October 1947, became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound. He said he tried to "bounce" Yeager, an unexpected attack to initiate a dogfight. "He was coming up from Spain in a 104 and I couldn't catch him," Foster laughed. "He was much faster than I was, but I got the opportunity to talk to him later on in Germany." In selling his replica, Foster admits he never got to fly a real P-40 Warhawk. "But I've flown the P-51s, and it's very similar in some ways. It doesn't have a big honking engine on it, but fortunately, this one here doesn't have a big honking engine on it either," he said. Mechanic Pieter Terblanche has been working on the Warhawk. "It's in very good shape for the time it's been sitting," he said. "Everyone that buys a plane has their own idea on what needs to be done to the plane. It can be done pretty fast." Foster's daughter, Tracy, said the plan was to have it placed in a museum, but there have been several people who expressed interest in buying it. Offers have been outlandish, she added. "We've had a couple of crazy offers, like $500 and a case of beer, and I went nope. And then it was $5,000 and a case of beer," she said. One person offered $200, Tracy said, but it turned out he thought it was a model he could fly using a remote control. Her father has never spoken much about his time as a fighter pilot, she said.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Hundreds ordered to evacuate Newfoundland town of Musgrave Harbour as wildfire closes in
A town in northeastern Newfoundland has been ordered to evacuate as an out-of-control wildfire closes in and officials declare a state of emergency, sending hundreds of residents fleeing and fearing for their homes. Justice and Public Safety Minister John Haggie told reporters later Sunday that the fire was 'a significant and serious issue.' Jamie Chippett, the deputy minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture, said that when the fire was first detected Saturday night, it was about eight kilometres from Musgrave Harbour. By noon Sunday, Mr. Chippett said, the blaze was just one kilometre from the community's homes and 'at a very high rank, a Rank 5 in technical terms.' 'That means very active.' He added that gusty conditions, including wind blowing south and southwest, put the community 'directly in the line of the fire.' At least four water bombers and one helicopter are being used to fight the flames, after an alert from the provincial Department of Justice and Public Safety on Sunday morning urged people in the area to leave because of 'extreme wildfire behaviour.' Musgrave Harbour resident Roger Jordan Hicks, 43, said the fire only started Saturday, but it has already gotten 'crazy.' He believed everyone in town but the fire department and RCMP detachment had left by Sunday afternoon. Like many residents, Mr. Hicks fears for his home, which is surrounded by forest. He only had time to take his safe, medication and a few clothes before evacuating. He had to leave behind family heirlooms, including some old Newfoundland currency that has been passed down through generations. As for the house, he said, 'I don't expect it to be there when I get back.' He has insurance, but many of his neighbours don't, because of the high cost of living. That has left some people feeling 'scared,' Mr. Hicks said. But if there is widespread destruction, Mr. Hicks is confident the intimate fishing town will be able to come together and rebuild. 'Everybody knows everybody, and sometimes you know somebody's business before they know it,' he said with a laugh. 'I know everyone is going to come together because that's just the way we are.' In the meantime, evacuated residents are watching the weather and hoping the wind will change direction. In addition to the water bombers provided by the province, Mr. Hicks says he also has 'faith' in the local fire department. Meanwhile, residents of two communities roughly 110 kilometres south of Musgrave Harbour are still on edge as another wildfire roars nearby. The fire in the Chance Harbour area ignited July 14 and encompassed an area of about 16.6 square kilometres as of Sunday morning. With reports from The Canadian Press
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Plane crashes and hijackings: Are aerial incidents rising in Canada? Experts weigh in
A seaplane crash at an Ontario lake and a plane hijacking at a B.C. airport have prompted questions about aircraft safety and airport security — but data shows airplane accidents are declining on average, and experts say there may be too many challenges to get security at small- to medium-sized airports up to the level they need to be. Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) data from the last five years show there have been fewer than 200 'plane accidents' each year — with 193 in 2024, 181 in 2023, 167 in 2022, 192 in 2021 and 171 in 2020. That averages roughly 181 plane crashes per year over that span. But the previous decade — from 2010 to 2019 — saw an average of 251 plane accidents per year, significantly higher than Canada has seen more recently. 'We have an increase in the quality of pilots, pilots are much more rigorously trained and inspected, and that's done by Transport Canada and by instructors,' said John Gradek, from McGill University's aviation management school. 'More airplanes are flying, but a reduction in incidents, which is good news.' Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of a seaplane crash this week, when a 16-year-old died at Lake Scugog, Ont., after a small plane collided with the dock he was standing on. The teen died at the scene, while the pilot was taken to hospital with minor injuries. TSB investigators have not yet confirmed what contributed to the crash but said alcohol was not a factor. TSB told CTV News in an email that investigators were back on scene Sunday and that the aircraft had been examined. 'The aircraft will be transported to a secure location in case they need to look at it again. Interviews with witnesses have been carried out,' said TSB spokesperson Nic Defalco. Gradek said the TSB's role in providing recommendations to Transport Canada after crash investigations has played a major role in improving pilot training and safety measures, helping reduce crashes overall. 'What Transport Canada has done in the last few years is really take note of TSB recommendations on small airplanes and really instructed their inspectors to be more vigilant — in terms of the aspects the TSB might have reported on, things like training, like the number of hours. Particularly, floatplanes are very fickle in how you fly them,' he added. Hijacking at B.C. airport sparks security debate A plane hijacking from the Victoria Flying Club in B.C. has also raised questions about increasing security at smaller airports across Canada — which experts say is ideal in theory, but nearly impossible in practice. 'You certainly want to increase security reasonably where you can, but I think you would be hard-pressed to impose a uniform level of security in the general aviation world because there are so many airports. A lot of them are out in the middle of nowhere, some of them have very little activity — it would be really, really challenging to come up with security that we think of in the commercial world as consistent,' said Steven Green, a retired Boeing 737 captain and accident investigator, in a Zoom interview with CTV News Sunday. CTV News reached out to more than a dozen small- to medium-sized airports across the country from Thursday to Sunday. While some did not respond to the request, others said they have no plans to change security measures following the hijacking incident in B.C. 'Following any incident, we conduct an internal review to assess our response and identify areas for improvement,' said Linsday Gaunt, Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Business Development at Victoria Airport, in an email to CTV News. 'Should Transport Canada make any recommendations as a result of this investigation, we will work with them to support implementation as appropriate.'
