KARLA GRIERSON

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KARLA GRIERSON

January 3, 1967 – August 21, 2025

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Karla Gaye Grierson on August 21, 2025 at the age of 58 years. With her mother by her side, she passed suddenly in Toulouse, France, from complications during treatment for uterine cancer.

Karla began her life in Brandon and graduated from Vincent Massey High School in 1984, speaking highly of the education that prepared her for further academic pursuits, first at McGill University in Montreal and then Strasbourg and Paris, in France. Summers often took her to Germany and nearby countries to study languages essential to her research and in 1992 she obtained a research grant and was invited to teach as a university instructor the following year. Not one to back off a challenge, Karla was ultimately granted a Doctorate in Comparative Literature and Pedagogy from the Sorbonne in 1997 and published her thesis "Peau De Memoire" (The Skin of Memory). This imagery of the Concentration Camp Narrative was based on literary works of survivors of the Holocaust, and Karla was invited to serve with a team of researchers presenting at colloquiums in Europe on this topic.

After being hired by the French government to a tenured position as associate professor in Toulouse University of Literature, Karla began the process of naturalization to become a French citizen in 1999. She had followed her dreams on a “road less traveled” and went on to live with her cat companions, in a stone farmhouse in Southwest France, an hour’s drive from work. Her modest home on the crest of a hill near Crastes had once been a vineyard and now was agricultural farmland not dissimilar from her native Manitoba, except on a clear day she enjoyed a view of the Pyrenees mountains dividing the country from Spain, and the winters were more welcoming. Karla worked at the university until ill health caused her to take a disability leave and eventually early retirement in 2019.

Throughout her forty years in France Karla felt the spiritual influence of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Master at nearby Plum Village. A poet and peace advocate nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Martin Luther King Jr., he headed the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation during the Paris Peace Accords, and authored such books as "Being Peace" and "The Miracle of Mindfulness".

Sports like softball, ringette and the alpine skiing of her youth, were replaced by a love of contemporary dance and until her passing. Karla maintained a local fitness and swimming membership, enjoyed opera and cultural music, walks in nature and more recently, resumed a lifetime hobby of knitting. In recent years Karla was reconnecting her family ties and had she been given more time, planned to repatriate to Canada.

The family is very grateful for the kindness shown by neighbours in Crastes, France and in the Brandon area, and her fellow French citizens who provided hospital care and support throughout her illness and her sudden passing. Karla leaves to mourn her loss her mother, Sandra (Don) Penny, stepmother Judith (Duncan) Grierson, sister Rhonda (Olli) Gruetzner, and niece Olivia Auriat. She will be missed by relatives in the Grierson, Cantlon and Penny families, as well as her colleagues, friends and neighbours in France.

Karla’s ashes will be interred at Riverside Cemetery in Hartney, Manitoba with generations of her family, at a later date.

If desired, donations in Karla’s memory may be directed to a charity of your choice or to:

The War Amps – Manitoba, PO Box 728 STN MAIN, Winnipeg MB R3C 2K3 (cheque), 1-800-250-3030, waramps.ca or Amnesty International Canada, 1-800-266-3789, amnesty.ca

As published in Brandon Sun on Nov 29, 2025