‘She taught us of the finer things’

Influential analyst, writer with sophisticated taste was widely loved 

By: Erik Pindera

It’s a process, a ritual I’ve come to follow rotely when I buy my fiancée flowers every week or two.

In her youth, my aunt, Deborah Lee Kernested, worked for a florist in the small Prairie town where she was born and grew up.

Always methodical — always one who wanted things done properly and promptly, with a little decorum — my aunt learned there how to best cut flowers to ensure the plants would last the longest and bloom the best, and how to arrange them, the different lengths required to make the bouquet look the fullest.

With roses, she would tell her nephew, you want the water in the case almost boiling hot, as hot as the tap will go. You want to cut the woody stems a few inches under the water in a sink full of the nearly boiling water, and if you watch, you can see the bubbles rise as the stems soak it up.

The stems should be cut at angle, so even if the stem sits at the very bottom of the vase, it will still drink up the water. With roses, she would say, you can peel off some of the exterior leaves, the ones that got a little ratty sitting in the old water at the store, and when they bloom, they’ll look fuller, cleaner.

My aunt died suddenly in her home, a Wellington Crescent high-rise condominium that fit her fine taste, on Nov. 26 at age 67, after a too-short life from a cancer that would not respond to any treatment thrown at it.

Her loved ones celebrated her life just over a month later on what would have been her 68th birthday. I wore a three-piece suit — tailored, with shoes polished — as she would have wanted.

Deborah — or Deb, but never Debbie — was born on Dec. 22, 1957, in Teulon, to father Herbert, who died young of cancer, and mother Rhoda Kernested, who is now 92. She had two siblings: her younger sister, my mother, Carla, and her younger brother, Douglas, who died when he was 17.

In Teulon, she lived a regular rural life, riding horses and participating in 4-H club. Despite having long left the country behind, she retained a deep affection for chickens throughout her life, as evidenced by the several rooster statues and motifs in her home.

A fiery redhead later renowned for her sense of fashion and design, Deb left Teulon to study in the city and became a registered nurse, which led to further studies and eventually, her work as a technical writer and analyst.

She moved to Toronto in 1989, where she wrote her first textbook on early childhood education, Well Beings, before she went on to co-author another textbook, Healthy Foundations in Early Childhood Settings.

Her works are widely consulted guides commonly found in Canadian child-care facilities to this day, said Jodie Kehl, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association at the funeral last month.

Deb moved back to Winnipeg in 1996, in large part to be close to her family, particularly my sister and me. She worked as a technical writer, developer of medical software and analyst, and lived with her long-term partner, Ali Taghvai.

Most recently, she worked as a senior clinical analyst at CancerCare Manitoba before her retirement in 2024, though she was forced to return for treatment not long after.

She was a memorable and gregarious woman who gathered friends wherever she went — from her colleagues to the woman who did her pedicures at her favourite salon, to the sales staff at the stores she shopped at a little too frequently. Deb, with her sense of humour and strong opinions on just about everything, was widely loved.

She played a large role in my life and that of my sister, pitching in to help my single mother raise us. If we were in trouble, it was often Deb who came to help.

She taught us of the finer things — buying the name-brand kids snacks advertised on television our mom would balk at, when we went to sleep at her home on a weekend night — and never hesitated to spoil her beloved niece and nephew in any way she could, though often, that meant the gifts she thought of months in advance of a special occasion.

From Deb I learned the importance of tailoring in men’s wear, how to pick a watch, how to hang a painting, how to pay attention to what others want, how to ask politely and how to be firm. She taught me how to drive, perhaps a little too fast, and much about laughter.

Despite the fact she did not cook, I learned a lot from her about the necessity of good ingredients, of wine pairing and of the importance of being prepared to host.

Known by my sister and me — and many other children to whom she was not related by blood — as “Auntie Deb,” Deborah did not have children of her own, and late in her life, when the end came near, she talked late into the night with her friends about the legacy, or perhaps the lack of one, she thought she would leave.

But when I got roses last Sunday and I filled the sink, as hot as it would go, and peeled off the ratty outer leaves before I cut off the woody stems under the water and watched the bubbles flow, I thought of my aunt Deborah.

I always will.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca