RAE ARMSTRONG (NEELANDS)

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RAE ARMSTRONG (NEELANDS) Nurse, Teacher, Wife, Mother, Beloved Mentor to all Rae Armstrong, wife of Les and mother of Beth and Sean, passed away peacefully March 7, 2007, at the Lake of the Woods Hospital in Kenora, Ontario, with her loving family by her side. Rae was the oldest daughter of Weldon and Ethel Neelands, and was born in Winnipeg on July 11, 1937. Rae had a brother David with whom she shared her love of music, books and plants, and a sister Susan with whom she spent many happy hours doing crosswords on the sundeck at Longbow, and talking about their shared passions for handicrafts and gardening. By her own account she had a magical childhood growing up in the Wolseley area of Winnipeg. We were enthralled by her stories of the Winnipeg Flood, the Wolseley Tree Incident, and the summer vacations at Victoria Beach and Pioneer Camp where she met one of her dearest lifelong friends, Bunny Miller. Rae's earliest plan for herself was to become a teacher. She was the big sister who had to show David and Susan how to do everything: tie their shoes, skip and do hopscotch, play marbles, and hang by their toes from a tree branch with the river waters swirling beneath. Being Rae's pupil was not always easy with poor little David breaking his collarbone, not once but twice. Whatever she undertook she had a personal need to master, and become the very best she could be, as everyone who met her later in life can attest. This caused a small dilemma when she decided to join her brother at the rifle range and ended up winning the provincial championship, the first woman to do so. The prize - a trophy of a man holding his rifle ! Life does not always unfold as we expect, but there is a divinity that shapes our end, and Rae lived her life with the belief that everything happens for a reason, the bad as well as the good. While Rae's first love was teaching, she felt a calling to be a nurse, and so she entered the Grace Hospital School of Nursing, graduating with her Bachelor of Nursing in 1959. Rae was offered excellent nursing opportunities in the city, but Rae throughout her life chose the road less travelled, and so it was to be for her nursing career. Her first job was in the north which she chose after reading a newspaper account about a dysentery epidemic in which numerous babies were dying as a result of poor sanitation. Rae went up to save the babies but her greatest reward was in teaching the people how to prevent the diseases that were devastating their lives. A railway gascar tragedy which took the life of her patient and nearly ended her own, changed her life forever. Because her right wrist had been so severely crushed, she was told she would never nurse again. Not one to quit, she taught herself to write with her left hand, and entered the University of Manitoba where she graduated with diplomas in teaching and supervision and public health. Fate again played a big part in the next phase of Rae's life. Because of her training and experience, she was sent to the high arctic to develop and expand public health programs for the Eskimos as they were then called. Rae's base was to be Churchill, Manitoba, which at the time had a large American military presence due to the Cold War as well as the Rocket Research Range. The Canadian Armed Forces provided support services including medical and dental. Shortly after arriving in Churchill, Rae lost a filling and was seen by a very young (22 year old) dental officer. Rae had been given a clean bill of health by her dentist in Winnipeg only weeks before but was advised that many follow-up appointments with the young Captain Armstrong were needed (a matchmaking setup by the front desk clerk). The matchmaker was successful! And so Rae began the next phase of her life which was to be challenging in the extreme but not without its rewards. Because she felt she could not be the best wife and mother by sharing her time, energy and devotion to duty, Rae gave up something she loved to be with someone she loved. For the next 43 years, beside being the very best wife and mom, Rae served her community and the people in it, with passion, commitment, and a fierce determination to make things better. Rae arrived in Kenora in 1973 with her husband Les, who had just accepted a position with the Northwestern Health Unit. Rae reluctantly agreed to take the nursing refresher course when Les stated he had registered her, and that the $100 registration fee was nonrefundable. This opened several doors. The first was as camp nurse at B'Nai Brith, a Jewish children's summercamp on Lake of the Woods, where she became the second mom to many homesick little campers. Rae and her children spent many happy summers at B'Nai Brith. While the sailing, the canoeing, and the singing around a campfire are cherished memories, being accepted and embraced unconditionally by another culture, is an experience they will never forget. The second door to be opened was the prenatal and Lamaze program, which she pioneered on her own with a pay if you can policy. Whatever money she received went back into the program. Rae's need to be the best forced her to invest in the latest books, training videos, and to attend at her own expense, international conferences where the leaders in the field were presenting. Rae was alarmed at the high level of postpartum depression suffered by her new moms. She believed that part of the problem was the lack of support and social interaction. A new fad called dancercise caught her attention. Nothing like this was available, so again, at her own expense, she rented the gym at the Rec centre, and provided classes free to her new moms. The classes were an instant hit, so much so that other ladies not in her classes asked if they could join. These paying customers helped pay for more gym time, allowing for three separate sessions per day. When you added prenatal classes and a family there eventually came a point where something had to give. While she loved the prenatal program and the people she came to know through it, she realized it was time for someone else to take over. She gave all her resources to a lady she trusted and knew would do an excellent job. The last phase of Rae's life of service to others was with her golden girls. This was a group of senior ladies she loved dearly who gathered three or four times a week, not only to do their ball exercises, but to support and comfort each other through loss and grief, that visits all too frequently, as we age. Rae loved her husband and her children, taking delight in their adventures and achievements. To name just two events that touched her deeply was when her daughter received her Honors Education Degree from McGill University, last year, and when her son was accepted into medicine, at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, where she had given birth to him, 24 years before, to the day. In closing the family cannot possibly thank enough the caregivers in Winnipeg and Kenora. You treated her with compassion and love; you enabled her to leave us, in peace, and with dignity. A funeral service will be held in Knox United Church in Kenora, Ontario, at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 15, 2007. A reception will be held at the Best Western Lakeside Inn following the service and will extend into the evening to allow everyone an opportunity to remember Rae and to celebrate a life well lived. Anyone wishing to make a donation in Rae's memory may do so to the Kenora Recreation Centre or to the Lake of the Woods Hospital.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Mar 13, 2007