Obituary of Kathleen Weir

Funeral Service for Kathleen “Kelly” Elizabeth Weir Born: September 1, 1925 Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Passed Away: Friday, January 28, 2005 Lloydminster, Saskatchewan at the age of 79 years. She is survived by her loving husband: Glenn daughter Bobbi Weir Tinson, grandchildren: Alex, Jane, Alistair Son: Doug and his wife Debbie grandchildren: Kent, Michelle, Lauren Sister: Gertie Creech Sister: Bobby (Harry) Byrt nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews Eulogy as given by Doug Weir Well let me start by saying that although I’m not exactly happy to be standing here in the year 2005, our family feels blessed in that it very well could have been 1975. Kelly Weir was born in Lloydminster, September 1, 1925. Predeceased by her mother Abigail in 1930, father Godfrey in 1983, brother Jim in 1992 and sister-in-law Edna in 2002. Mom grew up on the family farm north of town, attended the North Gully School until grade 8 and then high school in Lloydminster. Following graduation from high school mom went to Saskatoon normal school where she earned her teaching certificate. (If the truth were known I think dad applied to normal school and he didn’t make it through the interview process). After two years of teaching in Delisle, North Bend and Burke schools mom decided it was time for a new adventure (personally I think some of my clients today in the Hillmond and Lashburn areas may have influenced her decision for a change). This next adventure in life took her to Guelph, Ontario in 1946 to attend Business College. Mom initially stayed with Uncle Frank and Auntie Gertie. It all started when Uncle Frank invited dad over for supper one night while they were both attending Vet College. Dad likes to say that he walked into Frank and Gerties house and saw a beautiful ankle sticking out around the corner and he knew there must be a beautiful lady attached to it. And thus the romance started. I can see it now - how could mom pass up this strapping muscular athlete weighing in at 118 pounds. Mom and dad both started many true friendships while living in Guelph and most of those friendships are still thriving today. While living in Guelph mom and three of her girlfriends made a trip to New York for the weekend - mom loved stories about the city of New York forever after her visit there. Mom moved to Saskatoon in the fall of 1949, I kind of think that Weir kid was hanging around that area after graduation from Vet College. Mom and Dad were married in July of 1950. The newly weds lived in Edmonton where mom worked as a secretary for the government and dad worked at the veterinary lab. The two moved to Lloydminster in February of 1952 to start veterinary practice. Mom and dad worked hard to develop the business. As you well know it takes a dedicated partnership to make a business grow - and dedicated they were. Mom was at the centre of the business for 36 years making sure things were done right. It was unquestionably a joint venture in the truest form. We are all extremely proud of their accomplishments personally and professionally. As many of you know mom and dad loved to travel around the globe, I don’t know how many countries they visited throughout the years but it was significant. I think that mom and dad had a total of 13 South African vets work for them over the years, needless to say South Africa was one of their favourite travel places - they made that trip five times. Of course mom and dad also loved to spoil their grandchildren so into that travel equation were numerous trips to Australia. Mom and dad were what I would call experts in keeping in touch with people they had met in different parts of the world over the years. The past few days have seen many e-mails and phone calls from friends from near and far wishing our family well. Mom used to brag that she had evaluated the hospital care in more countries than anyone else. Along with the South African veterinarians came Volkswagens, 27 of them over the years - mom claimed that she always had the most beaten up Volkswagen in the fleet after it had been driven through numerous ditches and pastures. Young veterinarians and hard work led to numerous parties in our house and the basement of the clinic. Usually the rugs would get rolled up and the dancing would begin - the laughing and stories would provide great memories for a lifetime. I was always amazed by mom’s ability as a short order cook. Bobbie and I would come home from school for lunch and while we were eating dad would often phone to say he was bringing 2 or 3 extra people and that he would be home in about 10 minutes - it never phased mom, she would whip up more food and carry on, then quickly clean up and get back to the office to make certain that dad was getting some work done along with his visiting. I should let you know that it wasn’t only the vets that put in long hours in those early days of veterinary practice. In those days it wasn’t uncommon to spend half of the night at the stockyards testing cattle for export. Well as you know long hours and tired workers often have some paperwork mistakes and you can also imagine how unhappy US border veterinarians would be if the number of cattle on the truck doesn’t match the paperwork. The message of this story is that mom was often up into the wee hours of the morning going through ear tag numbers for hours trying to find the illusive missing animal before the trucks were loaded in the morning. Mom was the “super mom” driving me to those awful 6 a.m. hockey practices, driving me to the farm at Creech’s or Pikes’ and of course running my sister and me to sports and other events continually. Mom kind of agreed to help me with a special science project one year. The part she agreed to was driving me to Creech’s farm. While there I caught a mouse and put it in a cage I had built. I had left the cage outside my bedroom window but during the night the darn mouse was squeaking so much that I couldn’t sleep so I got up and put the cage in mom’s car. I made certain to take the cage out of the car in the morning before school but as mom found out on the way to work my little friend had managed to get out and was loose in the car. Needless to say mom had a bit of excitement on the way to work. As I mentioned earlier mom and dad loved to travel, however their travels weren’t always done by commercial airlines. Mom and dad travelled near and far in their plane and had many great adventures. My favourite story is when mom and dad and Uncle Harry and Auntie Bobbie planned to fly to Las Vegas. Well the trip there got a little rougher than usual - the “girls” were in the back seats and had had enough of this bouncing around. They landed at an airport near Denver - mom and Auntie Bobbie marched over to the commercial airline counter, bought a ticket to Vegas and left the boys to bounce around on their own. Uncle Harry and dad didn’t arrive until the next day and the “girls” had already had loads of fun. Our family holiday was always to Osoyoos, BC where we had so many good times, that filled us with memories for years to come. One of our most memorable family trips was to Expo in 1967. This story actually had more to do with dad but mom so loved to tell it. We went to the Bell Telephone display, which was a revolutionary 360 degree movie theatre screen. Dad was to meet a friend after but we decided that we had time to go the movie first. Well part way through the movie dad decided that we had to leave as he was going to be late. We started to exit and the usher said, “you can’t leave, if you open the doors the theatre automatically shuts down” - needless to say that didn’t stop dad - out the doors we went. Well, we waited and waited for dad’s vet friend. When he finally showed up he said he would have been there earlier but they were in the Bell Telephone Theatre and some idiot went through the doors and shut the movie down and they had to wait for the next sitting. Mom was much like Grandpa Pike when it came to watching the news and staying current with events around the world. If you were going to challenge her about some world event you had better have your story straight and have the facts to back it up. Also, like her father, mom always maintained a young attitude with regards to changes in our world. As I mentioned earlier, mom had the misfortune of visiting more hospitals world wide than most. Among those that knew her mom was an icon for courage, strength and survival. Our family is so blessed to have had this treasure with us for many more years than we would have ever expected. Mom had serious health problems since 1964 but always seemed to bounce back. And when I say bounce back I mean exactly that. A typical scenario was in 1999 when mom had pneumonia, congestive heart failure and renal failure in a hospital in Australia. The doctor had told dad that if he had faith he had better put it to use because man alone was not going to save Kathleen. Three days later she sat up in bed and said, “I could use a cup of tea”. Although mom didn’t particularly care for cats she certainly had some cat genetics that truly gave her 9 lives. I don’t know how mom maintained such tenacity for life, at times she was so sick and felt so bad and yet she always struggled to come back for more. Mom had the attitude “when the going gets tough the tough get going”. Just this fall she said to me “Doug where are those weights I bought you in high school - well you know if you sit around like this you are just going to lose muscle mass and get weaker - I need to start working out”. Well there are some that live life rather quiet and sedate and those that live it full out until the gas tank is totally empty - we are so fortunate mom lived every last drop. And it was no surprise to us that she was a perfect lady throughout. In closing I would like to say “Don’t cry because it is over, Smile because it happened”. Card of Thanks From our family thank you to our community, relatives, friends, caregivers, all who gave so generously and willingly to our home. Fellow travellers on our magical journey of life you have been so important to us. Thank you sincerely McCaw Funeral Service. We acknowledge the many cards and floral tributes, in lieu of personal thank you notes a donation will be made to The Lloydminster Interval Home. Donations in memory of Kelly may be made to The Lloydminster Region Health Foundation - CT Scan, Big Brothers and Sisters and Lloyd and Area Brain Injury Society.