JOAN PAYNE

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JOAN PAYNE Joan Monica Bridget Payne (nee Billane) passed away on February 15, 2007 in Edmonton, AB. Joan Payne was born on April 27, 1922 in Neemuch, India, where her father and mother were stationed with the British Army. In the late 1920s, the family returned to Britain before her mother, Kathleen Billane, accepted a job as a British Army School Mistress in Gibraltar. The family lived in Gibraltar; returning to Britain just prior to the Second World War. Joan completed her schooling at the Portsmouth Training College, before beginning her teaching career in wartime London. She later spoke of having to teach many of her classes in bomb shelters. During the war, she met Thomas Moore Beauchamp Payne of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and married him in 1945. She immigrated to Canada as a war bride in 1946 while he was in the army of occupation in Germany. After his return to Canada, they settled in St. Anne de Bellevue on Montreal Island, where he attended Macdonald College of McGill University. After he completed a B.Sc and course work for an M.Sc in microbiology at McGill, the family moved to Edinburgh where Beauchamp completed his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. They returned to Canada in 1953, first to Ottawa and then to Winnipeg in 1956, after Beauchamp accepted a position as Professor of Microbiology at the University of Manitoba. After Beauchamp's untimely death in 1960, Joan was left a widow with three children. To support her family, Joan resumed her teaching career, working for the Fort Garry School Division #5 from 1960 to 1985 at Crane and St. Avila Schools as a Grade Three and Special Education teacher. She also returned to school herself, studying English and History and earning a B.A. and B.Ed from the University of Manitoba. She loved everything about being a university student and having the chance to pursue her own studies at university was very important to her. During these years she was active with the Manitoba Teachers Society and Save the Children Canada. After her retirement she served for many years on the national board of Save the Children Canada and on the board of the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation. Joan was also a member of the Jane Austen Society and a lifelong devotee of poetry and reading. Predeceased by her husband Thomas Moore Beauchamp Payne; her sister Noreen Vincent and brothers, Michael Billane and Denys Billane, Joan is survived by her son Michael and daughter-in-law Deborah Welch; daughters, Anna Payne Krzyzanowski and Philippa Crawley; sons-in-law, Stanley Krzyzanowski and William Crawley; and grandsons, Thomas and Patrick Krzyzanowski and Christopher Payne. A private memorial service with family and friends was held in Edmonton on February 21 at Connelly-McKinley Funeral Home.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Feb 23, 2007