EVELINE LORAIN TANNER

Adjust Text Size: A+ A-

EVELINE LORAIN TANNER

(nee FARLINGER)

With broken hearts and disbelief, we announce the death of Evie, pronounced EEvee, at 5:30 p.m. on Friday July 24, 2026, after a brief illness, surrounded by her loving family. Born in Winnipeg on March 5, 1940, to Eveline and David Farlinger Sr. She was the younger sister to Lois Dearden (Eddie) and David Farlinger Jr. (Roz). She is survived by her devastated husband John; her children Susan Calverley (Nat), David (Jill), Jane Preston (Jim), and Laurie Ireland (Davy); and her grandchildren Jane (Elliot), Zoe (Travis) and Josephine (Sam); Sam (Fatuma), Jaden (Ali) and Kendall (Elijah); Claire (Bryan), Laurie (Derek) and Tanner; and Frank (Roxanne), Portia (Tom) and favourite youngest grandson River. Also: nieces Cathy Dearden (Howie) and Kristin Farlinger, nephews Craig Dearden (Cathy) and Scott Farlinger (Vinni), cousins Jimmy, Jackie and Robert Partridge, sister-in-law Francie Lindquist (Allan) and her splendid west-coast family, and the Whicker clan, to whom Evie was connected through her mother-in-law Betty’s second marriage.

Growing up in West Kildonan, Evie played varsity volleyball and basketball in high school and taught Sunday School at St. Martin-In-The-Fields Anglican Church. She and John became an item during undergrad at St. John’s College, finishing their BA’s in 1961 when she was Lady Stick. The following year they married, to their parents’ initial consternation. Evie did everything to get John through med school, teaching school herself and giving birth. She never, however, wrote any of John’s exams for him. Mrs. Farlinger used to say: “Evie, I don’t know how you do it!” Evie made lifelong friends easily, including Lynn, Alberta and Reta in aquacises, Anita, Shirley and Linda in bridge, Bill and Billie Stewart the back-door neighbours, and more recently Peter Sheridan and the Friday lunch group at the Nook. Jessie and Malcolm from the P.E.I. were particularly dear to her. When the children were older she returned to out-of-home work for a decade in Day Care, which she enjoyed, and which equipped her with the interactive tools to be a very popular NaNa to her twelve grandchildren. There were trips of various kinds, often sustained by sour cream glazed and small coffee with cream: bridge in Gimli, and in Hawaii with Claire Weir; to Mississippi with Peggy Moncure and young children and a pop-up trailer; to the Maritimes with Jessie, her birthday twin; to Wilcox, Victoria, Toronto, Charlottetown, Grand Forks, Faribault, Attica and New Haven for a variety of children’s and grandchildren’s sporting events; to Ukraine with Koshetz choir and the “pivo” sisters; to Paris; to Great Britain to visit her distant relatives, and with John’s late cousin Ken’s church choir; to Brasilia to visit the Horans; and to the delightful but all-too-short one-week winter’s time shares in Puerto Vallarta. She loved to swim, because she was a floater and she embraced the cold (once she was in!), and so she was usually the last to climb out of the water. She even white-water rafted, a photo of which is on display in the front hall.

Evie suffered several major health setbacks in the last six years of her life, but she soldiered on with great courage until her final infection overwhelmed her heart, liver and kidneys. Her last twenty-two hours of life were in supportive care. We are very grateful to all the medical and nursing staff of Fort Garry Access Clinic, Dr. Grant Goldberg and Matthew Christian, and to the various hospitals who looked after her in her later years, but especially those in St. Boniface Hospital Emergency and 6 East during her final four-day admission. Thanks to nurses Mafalda, Isabella and Sarah, and to attending physician Dr. Steve Grocholski for their extraordinary kindnesses.

There will be a Mass on Thursday August 27 at 7:30 p.m. at St. John Brebeuf Church, Lanark and St. John Brebeuf Place, and a Celebration of Life, with anecdotes and sing-alongs, on Friday August 28 at 11:00 a.m. at the Birchwood Inn, 2520 Portage Ave. She will be cremated and laid to rest in the old St. James Cemetery across Portage Avenue from her favourite mall, Polo Park. You can donate in Evie’s honour to the St. John’s College Foundation, 92 Dysart Road, R3T 2M5, or to a charity of your choice.

Vichnaya Pamyat’, my beloved.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Aug 01, 2026