CORA CATHERINE MCLANDRESS

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CORA CATHERINE MCLANDRESS On November 29, 2009, Cora Catherine McLandress died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 87. For the past six years she had been living at Misericordia Place after the death of her husband Donald in 2003. Although her last years were dimmed by Alzheimer's her life was a full and happy one. The only child of Colonel Charles Henry Moore, Jr. and Cora Floyd Keeler, she was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on September 22, 1922. Her father, an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, had been stationed there several years earlier after having spent time in Siberia and the Philippines. She was the granddaughter of astronomer James Edward Keeler, a director of Lick Observatory in California, and great-granddaughter of William Frederick Keeler, assistant paymaster on the U.S.S. Monitor during the U.S. Civil War. Her maternal grandmother Cora Slocumb Matthews was born at Oakley Plantation in Louisiana, and lived there during and after the Civil War. Cora's childhood was spent in numerous cities and army bases across the United States: Jefferson Barracks, Missouri; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Galesburg, Illinois, to name a few. She attended Knox College in Galesburg from 1939 to 1941 and University of Texas at Austin from 1941 to 1943 from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in French. An excellent student she was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1944 for her scholastic achievements. During the Second World War she worked as a communications intelligence officer in the U.S. Naval Service, helping to decode Japanese messages. Thinking perhaps that a degree in French would not guarantee a good job, she enrolled at Stanford Business School in 1949, graduating the following year with an MBA. It was at Stanford that she met and fell in love with fellow classmate and Winnipeger, Donald Hugh McLandress. They were married on April 23, 1951 in her parents' hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Shortly thereafter they moved to Canada, living in Calgary for several years before settling permanently in Winnipeg. Cora never put her business skills into practice, leaving that instead to her husband. Her energy was focused on raising her three children, which she did with great enthusiasm, sewing incredible Halloween costumes, building rabbit hutches at Lake of the Woods, hunting for arrowheads along the Red River, helping with French homework. As they grew older she devoted more time to her lifelong passion, art. She was an active member of the Forum Art Institute from its founding in the 1960s. Her favourite materials were acrylic paint and clay, and their house on Waverley Street was filled with her creations. Her sense of humour and wonder were funneled into her artwork. Cora was loved and admired by all who knew her. She was funny and kind. Never angry or sad, she was a steady presence in the lives of her husband and children. When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's almost 15 years ago, she never once bemoaned her fate, although at times you could see the sadness in her eyes as she realized things were slipping away. Cora leaves behind her three children Charlie (Diane), Jane (Steve) and Jim (Penny), and three grandchildren Hannah, Finlay and Cora. A funeral service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, December 4, 2009 at Thomson In The Park Funeral Home and Cemetery, 1291 McGillivray Blvd., phone 925-1120. A private interment will take place at Elmwood Cemetery where she will be laid to rest alongside her husband. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Dec 02, 2009