Isabella Gilmour Mann

Age 94, of Halifax, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Tuesday, 17 November 2015. Isabel was born in Musselburgh, Scotland on 16 August 1921 to parents James and Helen Ness. She was one of three children, though one died as an infant. Isa, as she was called in Scotland was older sister to Annie (Nan). They grew up on Iveresk Rd, Musselburgh. Isa was a top student in grammar school but for economic reasons left school shortly before her 16th birthday and started working as a bookkeeper for the Cooperative Society. This job, involving adding long columns of numbers written with a nib pen and ink bottle, resulted in her lifelong skill at mental sums. Isa’s social life in her teens included meeting friends at Luca’s Italian Ice Cream shop, a taste for which never left her. She also began to become quite proficient at golf with friends, however this was interrupted by her draft into the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

It was at the sports day event at a radar station on Coldingham Moor on the south-east coast of Scotland that the very popular, always smiling, WAAF corporal, Isa Ness, was first spotted by her future husband Ken, who was a newly arrived technical officer at the radar station. Romance between an officer and a corporal was considered bad for discipline, but Isa and Ken found ways to meet and talk. They were separated several times during the war but always managed to stay in touch, including a letter a day to Ken from Isa when she was posted to the Orkney Islands. Isa and Ken were married in Millhill church in Musselburgh in April, 1946. They took up married life in St. Luke’s College, Exeter and eventually moved to Reading in 1949. Isabel and Ken had three children over the years from 1950 to 1961. Isabel got lots of exercise in those early years as she pushed a baby carriage, or cycled, several miles back and forth to town. They were constantly hard up financially but by being thrifty, managed to enjoy life. In 1967, as part of the “brain drain”, Isabel and Kenneth and their three children emigrated to Canada.

Life in Canada suited Ken and Isabel and particularly their love for nature and the outdoors. Isabel derived great enjoyment from time spent with family and friends at their beloved cottage on Cox Lake and she swam regularly in the lake well into her 80’s! After her children got older, Isabel returned to part-time clerical work at Dalhousie University. Ken and Isabel provided warm hospitality, including many happy cottage parties, for Ken’s colleagues, graduate students and their families. They subsequently very much enjoyed travelling to visit those former students in various parts of the world. Isabel’s easy-going and warm disposition made her a friend to many with her sound advice tempered with a dose of Scottish humour.

Since Ken’s death in January 2010, Isabel has lived in Evan Hall, Halifax. Special thanks to the many caring staff there who made it a true home for her.

Isabel is survived by her three children, Ian (Lois), Sheila, Colin (Shelley); five grand-children, Jenna, Rebecca, Graham, Alex and Malcolm; and a sister-in-law Margaret (Jack) Needle and a number of nieces and nephews in England and Scotland. She was predeceased by her husband Kenneth and by her sister Annie ‘Nan’ (Ken) Wilson (Scotland).

A celebration of Isabel’s life for family and friends will be held at a later date. Memorial donations in Isabel’s memory may be made to the Alzheimer’s Society or the Nova Scotia Nature Trust.