Joyce Waddell-Townsend

Joyce Waddell Townsend of Kingston Ontario and late of Aurora, Ontario passed away peacefully in her 90th year on August 11, 2017.

Joyce was born in Montreal, Quebec, on October 1, 1927 to Ellen and James Waddell. In 1935, with her two younger brothers Graham and Keith, the family moved to Ste. Rose, Quebec in part for Joyce’s health. A neighbour provided primary education as there was no school, and her father was instrumental in starting the Protestant School Board.

Joyce passed the entrance examinations to attend Montreal High School for Girls from Grade 5, a 40-mile return bus trip. Under her high school yearbook picture, she wrote “Life is too short for us to bore ourselves”.

After high school Joyce attended McGill University, where she graduated in 1949 with a BA, the first of her family to get a post-secondary education. Like her father before her, Joyce worked for Bell.

At a New Year’s Eve party at McGill, she met and later married David Leonard Townsend, then a master’s student in civil engineering. David had just returned from working in Calgary, Joyce had worked one summer at the Banff Springs Hotel, and David offered to show her his slides. They both loved the mountains, downhill skiing and history.

The couple married August 29, 1953, and moved to London, England, where David was an Athlone scholar at Imperial College and Joyce taught at a secondary-modern school in the East End of the city.

Returning to Canada in 1955, they settled in Kingston, where David became an associate professor of engineering at Queen’s University, and the couple lived in a small house at Lower University and King Street West, where they had their first two boys. Joyce’s last two boys were born after the family moved to a house they built in Cartwright Point. With a growing family to look after, Joyce, Fran Crandall and others set up the first co-op day-care centre in Kingston at St. Paul’s Church.

After David went into private practice in 1970, the family moved to Oakville, Ontario and then Edmonton, Alberta, in 1975. David and Joyce sadly divorced in 1983.

Going back to university in 1979, Joyce earned a B.Ed. in Early Childhood Studies from the University of Alberta, and initiated the Preschool in Prison project in Edmonton. She went on to teach in a bilingual pre-school in Beaumont, Alberta and was later head of the Early Childhood Development Program at Grande Prairie Regional College, Alberta.

Returning to Kingston in 1987 to work on a M.Ed. at Queen’s, Joyce first lived downtown on Bagot Street before moving to Barriefield Village, now a Heritage Conservation District. Historical heritage was one of her life long interests.

In 1995, Joyce co-founded Kingston’s Children Visiting Prisons programme. A long time Ontario representative for OMEP-Canada (organisation mondiale pour l’éducation préscolaire, the UN preschool education organisation), she was awarded «OMEP honorary member» during the OMEP World meeting in 2001 in Santiago, Chile. Her efforts were also recognised by Correctional Service Canada in 2010 when Joyce was awarded the Taylor Award for her outstanding commitment, dedication and caring spirit.

Involved locally in the University Women’s Club and French lunch group, Joyce was an active member of the congregation at St. George’s Cathedral, with a particular interest in the history of its stained-glass windows.

She was also proud of discovering that the various university crests at Grant Hall at Queen’s had been created by Elizabeth Harrison, a Kingston artist living on Garden Island, and she was instrumental in getting the university to erect a plaque in the artist’s honour.

Joyce loved culture, particularly the ballet, and could remember watching Margot Fonteyn dance with Rudolf Nureyev in London in the 50’s as if it were yesterday.

She is survived by her four sons Chris (Leslie), Sandy (Sue), Ted and Matt (Khrissy), and her five grandchildren Kyla, Andrew, Seamus, Simon and Robert.

Joyce asked that her body be cremated and buried next to her parents in Rideau Memorial Gardens, Dollard des Ormeaux, Quebec.

Funeral service at St. George’s Cathedral, Kingston, Ontario on August, 28th, 2017 at 1:30 pm, with refreshments in the Cathedral Great Hall after. Donations in lieu of flowers to OMEP: Paulette Gauthier, OMEP-Canada treasurer, 1652, Jacques-Bureau, Québec QC G2G 2C5.