We have all come together here today to celebrate two very special people, our parents, parents-in-law, grandparents, and great-grandparents, Noel and Maureen Russell.  

So I’m going to tell you a story, a long story, one that spans the roughly 90 years that Noel and Maureen each spent in this world. Noel died when he was 88, and Maureen passed away a month shy of 90. 

At its heart, this is a love story, one that starts between two people, lasts more than six decades, and grows to include everyone in this room. We are all here, together, as the extended Russell family because of the enduring love between Noel and Maureen. 

They met in their early 20s and we’ll get to that part — it’s kind of an exciting romance with Dad as the hero who stole Mum away from her first fiancé — but first I want to tell you a little about their early years. 

Once you’ve read the story you can watch the video here! And see photos from their celebration of life here. And see many more vintage Russell family photos here.

Noel

Noel was born at home in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, the youngest of six children, on December 19, 1931. His siblings were Rosalie, George, James, Ernie, and Beatrice. His parents were Sarah, who was a Smyth, and James Russell. Sarah came from a farming family and James was a lawyer, the first in his family to achieve that status. James also served briefly as a soldier on horseback during World War I but was sent home due to injury. 

When Noel was nine, he came home for lunch on April 1 to the news that his father had been killed in a car accident, hit by a jeep driven by U.S. Army soldiers stationed nearby. This was during World War II, and although Northern Ireland was not involved directly in the war, there were soldiers stationed there.  

James’s premature death was a great tragedy for the family. Noel’s brothers George and James were only in their early 20s, but had to take over the family law firm immediately. They even accelerated the graduation of the younger James from law school. The family firm of James L Russell continued until 2019. One of our cousins continues as the fourth generation to provide legal services in Ballymena.  

Noel and his younger siblings were left fatherless and provided much support to their mother, who was left a widow in her mid-40s. He remembered that she did not venture downstairs for many months after her husband’s death. Eventually, Noel was the last one left at home with her. Despite the devastating loss, his siblings all attended university. His two eldest brothers became lawyers, his sister Rosalie studied home economics and married an engineer, his brother Ernie became an engineer and worked for Boeing in Seattle, and his sister Bea became one of the few women doctors in her generation. As we all know, Noel also became a doctor and that set him up for meeting Maureen when he was in medical school. 

While at school at Ballymena Academy, Noel enjoyed playing rugby. He was often sent to stay with his cousins at a farm in the country as a boy, and he had fond memories of those visits and spending time with his relations. He loved family vacations on the beach at Portstewart. He also acquired a motorcycle in his youth and enjoyed bombing around the countryside on that.  

Maureen

Maureen was more of a city girl. She was born in the small town of Bangor in 1932, born at home on the same street her parents would later retire to: Waverly Drive. But early in her life, her father William became the manager of a bank and they went to live in the house above the Ulster Bank in the big city of Belfast.  

A bit about Mum’s parents: Willie and Mabel. They were young during World War I. Willie tried to serve but was disqualified for health reasons. Mabel served as a nurse to wounded soldiers at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in England (she grew up in the farming village of Wooler in England). Willie was set to marry another woman, but she died of meningitis three days before the wedding. Her mother remained close to Willie and he ended up inheriting her house. Some of the furniture we still have in the family comes from the Milliken family. Mabel was an independent woman, traveling to New Zealand and Egypt as a private nurse. She had several love interests but did not settle down.  She met Willie in Ireland while she was providing nursing care for a young girl who later died.  

Willie and Mabel married at age 37, had our mum Maureen at age 40, and their son John at age 44. Their generation had their youth disrupted by the tragedy of World War I so it’s not so unusual that they married a bit later in life.  

Maureen grew up in Belfast and attended a private school called Methodist College, known as Methody. She played field hockey and swam competitively and took music lessons. She was also a girl guide. From early in her life Maureen was drawn to the natural world. She would take walks from Belfast to the countryside and collected specimens for her nature diaries, which survive to this day.  

She also had a lifelong love of reading and animals. She was especially drawn to cats.  

She recalled that the first thing she would do when visiting other peoples’ houses was to look for the cats. And then maybe hide away with a book.  

World War II erupted when Maureen was just seven and continued until she was 13. As Belfast was under threat of bombing, she and her brother John spent some time staying in the countryside with host families. She did NOT enjoy that. She had to attend a country school and missed her friends.  

Later in her youth, Maureen made several youth hostel hiking excursions, venturing as far as France. 

She followed her mum into the profession of nursing and moved from home to train when she was just 18, thus setting the stage for the meeting of Noel and Maureen.  

Theirs was a doctor/nurse romance. They met in 1953 when Maureen was a nurse on the ward where Noel was assigned as a medical student at Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Noel’s girlfriend Yvonne was a radiographer in the same hospital, while Maureen’s fiancé Johnty was off in England studying engineering. These unfortunate two have the role of “also-rans” in this romance. 

Noel quickly became enthralled with Maureen and broke up with Yvonne to court our mum. He claimed to have not known that she was already engaged to Johnty. 

“Johnty was a big man and very possessive,” recalled Maureen. “I’d been out with Noel on his motorbike and he left me off at my house. I told him I’d meet him in 15 minutes. Johnty was in town and saw my bedroom light was on and walked over and saw Noel and the motorbike. When he saw me going to meet Noel he accosted me, but I told him to go away. But he followed us…” 

Johnty had personal history and family approval on his side. Maureen felt very pressured and accepted his engagement ring in the fall of 1955.  

“My parents did approve of Johnty,” Maureen recalled. “In fact, Noel received an anonymous letter, supposedly from a friend, telling him to back off, but I recognized the handwriting and knew it was from my mother.

“I broke it off with Johnty right after Christmas, 1955,” said Maureen. “There was a dance on Boxing Day in our hometown of Bangor. My dad came to get me from Belfast for it. I knew I was going to break the engagement. I was feeling so terrible! Johnty came around and I put the ring on the table and said ‘I guess this is it.’” 

The Johnty camp didn’t give up easily. 

“My mother reminded me that marriages were not all based on passion, and Johnty kept pestering me to go see him. He’d visit my folks to try to talk to me through them.” 

So why did the little black-haired fellow from Ballymena win out over the tall, brooding hometown guy? 

“I was very moody at that age, and Johnty was too,” said Maureen, looking back almost 50 years when interviewed in 2004. “Neither of us would give in to the other, or try to talk each other out of a mood. Noel was very understanding of me and solicitous. He was like my own dad, in that my dad was very caring toward my mother. So that’s a trait I admired in Noel, his compassion, and the fact that he wasn’t possessive.”  

Now that gentle and caring nature is very characteristic of our Dad, a trait he handed down to his four sons. And as the daughter and granddaughters chose spouses, it was a trait they were attracted to in their men. So being a nice guy and/or choosing a nice guy is kind of a Russell family tradition.  

Six months after breaking it off with Johnty, Maureen became engaged to Noel, in June 1956. She then immediately left for a six-month maternity nursing training stint in Scotland, leaving Noel to smooth things over with her parents. He visited them a few times, getting to know them better and convincing them that he was a decent fellow with good intentions. 

“I came home for Christmas, and a year to the day after breaking it off with Johnty, Noel and I went to the same Boxing Day dance in Bangor. I remember walking through the snow with him.” 

Together

In April 1957, Noel and Maureen were married and had a reception at the Crawfordshire Inn in Helen’s Bay, Northern Ireland.  

Two months later, they sailed for Canada. Ten months later, their first child was born. Four years later, they had three children under three and were living a hectic and at times lonely life in Burnaby. Maureen’s mother eventually warmed up to Noel, although she wrote him a stern letter about restraining one’s self after the third child in three years. Seven years later, they added to the hectic pace by having their fourth son. Nine years later, they adopted their fifth child. Six decades and 17 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren later, they remained happily married. Noel was still caring and solicitous, and Maureen was known for her serenity, not her moods, so much so that we have a hard time believing her tales of her rocky youth.  

So I summed up their first decade in Canada in that last paragraph, but it was not an easy transition. 

Maureen was on her own, away from friends and family, and had her first son, Brian, within 9 months of arrival. (He must have been conceived on the boat over!). Followed very quickly by Dave and John within two and a half years. That’s three kids under three years old with no family support.  

Mum recalled that the streets in New Westminster and Burnaby had few sidewalks, unlike in her hometown, and she felt trapped in her apartment or house. She didn’t drive in those days and it was hard to push a pram over rough roads. Especially with a bunch of other kids in tow. When they eventually moved to their first house on Taylor Place in Burnaby things improved a bit.

Noel and Maureen forged friendships with other young doctors and their wives from Ireland and England. They had known Jimmy and Martha Martin in Ireland and continued their friendship here. They got to know the Parker Suttons, the Yellands, the Glasses, and others. Ten years in they were joined by the Johnstons, David and Belle. Noel and Davy Johnston had been best buddies in medical school. Those friendships endured through all their decades in Canada and provided the family-style support they all needed. 

They also found help: Mum’s friend Pat McQuitty came to stay when Dave was born and became his godmother (she is also who I, Patricia Anne, was named after, although I did not know that for decades). Mrs. Close became our weekly cleaning lady and stayed for 27 years. Mrs. Webber and Mrs. Davidson were brought in as babysitting reinforcement and also served the family for more than a decade each.  

Noel started to take Wednesdays off to go on excursions with Maureen, shopping, or picnicking. Those Wednesday dates were a tradition that lasted through retirement.  

They even took up skiing, learning at Mt. Seymour and then being some of the first people to ski at a new resort called Whistler. Noel was crazy about skiing. In fact, he was skiing the day Maureen went into labour with her fourth son, Colin. 

Maureen also preserved her sanity through visits home to Ireland when the boys and Anne were little, and visits from her parents and Noel’s mother. They always made a point of showing off the beauty of BC through day trips and multi-day excursions when the grandparents visited. Bit by bit they were growing to love the natural beauty of their new home country.  

Colin’s arrival in 1964 made for four boys in six years. And here’s the crazy part of the story, one for which I am very grateful. Mum wanted a girl. She wasn’t getting one the old-fashioned way. So they decided to adopt. I joined the family in April 1966. They flew to Prince George in the morning and home with me in the afternoon, much to the flight attendant’s surprise (she had also served them on the way up). So that made for five kids under the age of 8.  

Adoption is a multi-layered and emotionally charged lifelong experience. There are wounds close to the surface for all involved. Intertwined with every joyful story of joining a new family is the sad story of saying goodbye to the old one. But I want to express that as a little baby who was looking to make her way in the world, I am incredibly grateful that the family I landed with was this one, and that the parents that I got to have were Mum and Dad. My brothers were pretty good too! 

So, once I was on the scene, the family was complete, and the house at Taylor Place in Burnaby was too small. Mum and Dad found a brand-new house under construction at 814 Austin Avenue in Coquitlam and snapped it up. Our Coquitlam era began in June 1966. And we became good friends with our neighbours, the Chapples. Their daughter Nancy was like a sister to me and remains my friend to this day.

I should speak a little bit about Noel’s career.  

He wanted to come to Canada because he found the British healthcare system too restrictive. And he had an adventurous spirit too. He started with a one-year internship at the old Royal Columbian Hospital (where all four of his sons were born) and then practised in New Westminster for a couple of years before deciding to cross the river and join a practice in the growing community of Surrey, which in 1960 was still mostly dirt roads. 

All in all, he served B.C. families for 40 years as a general practitioner, delivering hundreds of babies, serving multi-generations of the same families, making house calls to the elderly in nursing homes, and seeing patients for a myriad of ailments in the office and in the hospital. 

He was well-loved and appreciated by his patients. I got to witness that in person as I worked in his office part-time for five years. His gentle nature suited a career in medicine just as it did in his role as a father and husband.

Mum stayed home to take care of us and the animals and the garden for all those decades, with only a couple of brief forays into the workplace as a health care aide and assistant in Dad’s office. 

She was a queen of balanced living once her kids were in school: lots of dog walks, lunch dates with friends, weekly swimming sessions, badminton, and later in life yoga. And, of course, her garden. 

Going through the family slides one can see prolific and beautiful gardens at every place they lived. She had a magic touch and a love of flowers. 

She was NOT a morning person and Dad would bring her tea and toast in bed every morning while we fended for ourselves at the breakfast table. She often read late into the night and went through probably a hundred books a year. 

But she excelled at providing us with lunch and dinner. Dad made a point of driving home from Surrey on his lunch hours for decades, for soda bread, hot biscuits, scrambled eggs, tomato soup, banana muffins, or cheesy toast.  

And there was dinner with fresh home-made dessert for all seven of us almost every night. We can all recall her banana cream and lemon meringue pies, “hard chocolate pudding”, her delicious chocolate cakes that turned out to be from a cake mix, her cookies, her macaroni, her roast beef, her lasagna, and other basic dinner fare for a crew of mostly plain and picky eaters.  

I mentioned pets: there were a lot of them over the decades, all loved dearly by Mum. Dad pretended to just tolerate the cats, but he was spotted being very tender with them when nobody was looking. And they both doted on their dogs.  

Over the years, they had at least 17 cats and 5 dogs, in this order: 

Cats

Fudge 

Tiger 1 

Tiger 2 

Nicky 

Pippi 

Ginger
Christa
Popsy 

Mopsy 

Jasper 

Sookie 

Katie 

Andy

Mickie

Zoe 

Lucy 

Neko 

Dogs 

Gyp 

Morag 

Bridie 

Cody 

Tess 

Alfie 

The last two cats and Alfie the dog outlasted Mum and I have placed them in loving homes in Chilliwack and I visit them from time to time.

Ours was a busy household all through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s as we grew from children to teens and left home one by one. 

Mum and Dad ferried us to countless swim practices and meets, soccer games, and water polo tournaments.  They also taught us all how to ski and took us on annual ski trips.

They stewarded us through our awkward teenaged years, and were there for tears and heartache, and also for an occasional stern talking to as Dad waited in his bathrobe for an errant teen to stumble home. 

They took us on holidays that introduced us to the beauty of BC’s oceanfront, lakes, and mountains. 

As the older boys grew into teens they started taking them on multi-day hiking trips, discovering their own joy of being immersed in nature along the way.  

And as we grew older they started to escape more frequently on their own, starting a decades-long enthusiasm with trips focused on nature or wilderness. 

They hiked mountain passes, rafted down rivers, rode horseback along trails (Dad did not like that) and kayaked rivers and oceans. They adventured in the desert, trekked in Scotland, visited Africa and Australia, and hiked Machu Pichu in Peru. Mum got really adventurous when she was almost 60 and trekked in Nepal with Colin and Maria. They really liked the Yukon and Northwest Territories and went on several rafting trips there.

This freedom to explore places of natural beauty on trips that Mum carefully planned and Dad cheerfully paid for were a defining feature of their empty nest years. 

The 1980s also marked the beginning of a new era in the Russell family. One by one we paired off and found our own soulmates, moved out, got married, and eventually started families of our own. 

We welcomed Lisa, Mari-Ann, Kathy, Maria, and Daryl into the family. And enjoyed some fun family weddings.

And those grandbabies started arriving! Bryden was the first, 40 years ago. (Wow!) Carmen was the final one, number 17, arriving 22 years after Bryden. And the first great grandchild, Rory, arrived just five years after Carmen.

As a teen still living at home I got to witness the loving care they provided for their first grandchildren, taking them in for weekly babysitting sessions. I still remember Dad gently walking a fussy baby through the yard to calm them down and Mum telling me he used to do that with his own kids too.  When we get to the slide show you will see many photos of Grandpa being affectionate with little kids. Grandma was known for patiently playing card and board games with her grandkids, and taking them for excursions to the park.

Empty nest life

In 1989 they moved to their “empty nest” home in Ocean Park, the house where they lived until their final days.  

Mum created a beautiful new garden that continues to flourish today. Let’s hope the new owners enjoy it.

When not travelling, they filled their days with dog walks at Blackie Spit, morning coffee on the deck, watching pre-recorded soccer games and TV shows, evenings out at the movies and theatre, and time spent quietly reading the newspaper and doing crosswords or Suduko side by side.

They continued to see their friends of many decades, going out for dinners and lunches with the Johnstons, the Parker Suttons, the Glasses, the Martins, the Yellands and the Kirkpatricks.

Mum was a very loyal friend, continuing to visit her good friend Marjorie Kirkpatrick even when Marjorie’s dementia made it so that she did not recognize her friend. And Dad would bring Alfie along much to the delight of all the residents in the home.

Once Mum decided she liked you, the relationship could continue for decades. She insisted that Dad drive her to our old neighbourhood in Coquitlam to pick up items from the same Avon Lady she had for 40 years. And she made friends with Terri, who was a cook on one of her wilderness trips. Terri lives in a very isolated cabin in northern BC, and Mum would ship her books every year and they had a very long letter-writing friendship and one memorable trip where Mum and Dad drove to see her.

They continued to have special relationships with each of their children and their families, traveling to Williams Lake, Kamloops, and Australia, and heading over to the Coquitlam and Chilliwack families for afternoon excursions and barbecues. I especially appreciated how Mum would come over and work on my garden while I was busy juggling my job and raising little kids. And they welcomed us all to their Ocean Park home for afternoon visits or overnight stays. They especially liked taking the grandchildren to the pantomime at Christmas. And some of the older grandchildren were lucky enough to be taken on nature-focused trips.

They had a really great couple of decades of empty nest and the freedom to enjoy their active lifestyle.

But, as happens to us all, age and health concerns began to catch up to them as they hit their mid-70s ad early 80s.

Later years

For years, it seemed as if Dad was the one with more health challenges. He took a proactive approach to this, choosing to have prostate surgery, a hip replacement, surgery for spinal stenosis, and eventually a quadruple bypass in 2009. He also was very lucky that when he did have a sudden heart incident, he was in hospital for a hip replacement, so they were able to get a pacemaker in right away. This was the same week that Sean was born! By the time they were done with him he was practically bionic! Thus, it is IRONIC that he was the first to pass because of his unfortunate household accident.

Dad spent his retirement years doing what he’d loved to do all along: taking care of Mum. And as her health began to decline, that got to be a major challenge and almost a fulltime job. One he did with love and tenderness.

Mum’s big double health whammy was a combination of swallowing issues and breathing issues. For the last decade or so of her life, the Barrett’s esophagus syndrome she developed prevented her from eating. She wanted to continue her life at home with Dad, so she opted for a feeding tube, which he lovingly administered five times per day, despite the challenges of arthritis in his hands.

And she also developed a rare non-infectious tuberculosis-type disease called macro avian complex, which made breathing difficult and plagued her with awful and exhausting coughing fits. Then macular degeneration began to rob her of her eyesight and she had to give up reading, one of her passions. Plus, she couldn’t hear so well anymore, although a hearing aid helped that.

But they carried on together in their stoic way, not complaining much and doing as much as they could to enjoy their life together. I especially enjoyed when they would drive out to Chilliwack on a weekday to have lunch with me at a little bistro near the campus where I work. Dad would always have the mussels and Mum would just say “nothing for me thanks” when the waitress inquired. And then Dad and I would share cheesecake for dessert. Mum would then insist that Dad drive her across town to our bookstore and shoe store, even though she really didn’t need any more books or shoes.

The hardest part

Then came the big change. On February 4, 2020, Dad was doing what he always did: taking care of his home. We think he was trying to change a lightbulb when he had his fall. His sudden passing was a shock to us all and changed everything immediately.

My brothers and sisters-in-law and I had never had to cooperate on anything difficult together before. We spent decades just laughing and joking around at family dinners. Now we faced a very difficult journey together.

I suddenly learned how to tube-feed (and no, I was not very good at it) as the Coquitlam, Williams Lake, Kamloops, and Chilliwack families worked together to take care of Mum in shifts those first few weeks. Colin flew in as well and pitched in.

Mum wanted to remain in her home and this was a big challenge. We couldn’t do it without outside help, so we enlisted Harmony Home Health to provide caregivers.

Mum’s new life with caregivers coming to tube-feed and care for her four times a day started March 16, 2020, just in time for the launch of the global pandemic, which made traveling to see her even more challenging for the distant families.

She got to know and rely on caregivers such as Susan, Minda, Mandy, Shelley, Wanda, Dorothy, and Carmelita, all of whom handled her with loving professional care.

I was honoured to be able to help her as much as I could. My specialty was procuring copious amounts of audiobook CDs for her to listen to. This was a real challenge early in the pandemic when the libraries closed temporarily, but through my friend at the local used bookstore and a call out to everyone I knew, I was able to keep her supplied.

I also enjoyed my visits with her when we would take long journeys down memory lane. She had nothing left but love, us, her cats, her mind and memories, so she would spend days thinking or wondering about something from the past and then we’d discuss it when I got there for my visit and we’d google about it or just talk about it. Or she would discuss it with her brother John on the phone from New Zealand.

Those of us who could visited as much as we could during the pandemic. Poor Colin was barred from entering the country for 16 months but finally made it over again in November 2021. It is a blessing that Mum was in her own home rather than long-term care over that time, although it was very hard to sustain and placed a difficult burden on those most involved.

I want to send a special shout-out to Dave and Lisa, who lived the closest and held the power of attorney (Dave). They kept Mum supplied with everything she needed, handled household emergencies such as floods on the floor and wasps in the drywall, paid her bills, took her to medical appointments, liaised with her extensive staff of caregivers, gardeners, hairdressers, and yard men, and were her most frequent visitors. Lisa and Mum enjoyed many days and hours of visits together and got to know one another better than they ever h

Mum also cherished the company of her two cats, Neko and Lucy, who were great companions and comfort to her.

Everything changed on July 29, 2022. Mum fell on the way to the bathroom in the night and broke her arm, her humerus bone.

What followed was a very difficult seven weeks.

I had some beautiful conversations with Mum during this time and also some very difficult nights struggling to care for her when she was in extreme pain.

It was her wish to remain at home as long as possible and we worked to accommodate that wish. I want to thank all of my sisters-in-laws and brothers (note I said sisters-in-law first!) for the care we worked together to provide in those final two and half years and those final seven weeks.

We spent time with her at home and in hospital and at home again and eventually in hospice.

And then we lost her.

She declined over those seven weeks and eventually passed on September 18, 2022.

And here we are.

Sorrowful that they are both gone but joyful that we got to spend so many decades with them.

And their legacy is US. Here we are all, with our loving partners and beloved children and grandchildren, living healthy lives modeled on them. They raised us well and prepared us for our legacy of raising our families well. And for that we are very grateful.

We LOVE you, Mum and Dad.

I’m going to repeat some words for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I wrote shortly after Mum passed.

We may not have Grandma and Grandpa with us any longer, but you can remember and honour them this way, doing the things they loved: Appreciate nature. Take a hike. Read a book. Plant a garden. Plan an adventure. Travel. Learn to kayak, ski, or river raft, or take it up again. Visit with each other. Sit in the sunshine. Cherish your pets. Love and hug your children and spouses. And stay connected with all of us.

Thank you for listening to my very long love story about two very beautiful people.