Joan Monod, née Donovan, died July 4, 2024, age 91 years 11 months. She was born July 29, 1932, at the Turnpike Inn in Connor Down, Cornwall, England, where her uncle and aunt were innkeepers. Her mother, Edith Taylor Donovan, was the daughter of Somerset farm laborers; her father, Arthur Donovan, was an electrical engineer working on St. Michael’s Mount, a picturesque island in west Cornwall.
The couple had five sons before the birth of their first daughter, who enjoyed an idyllic childhood on the Mount. Arthur had served for twenty years in the Royal Navy and rejoined as an electrical artificer when the Second World War broke out. He was drowned on HMS Courageous, an aircraft carrier sunk on September 17, 1939. After this devastating loss, Joan and her mother Edith first moved to Marazion on the mainland, where Joan attended West Cornwall College for Girls in Penzance, then in 1949 to Ilfracombe in North Devon, where Joan took a job as bookkeeper at the Mount Hotel.
There she was charmed by the hotel manager, Kléber Michel Louis Monod. In December 1954 the couple moved to Montreal. Joan was employed as bookkeeper and secretary to Kléber, who became manager of the Montreal Badminton and Squash Club. She worked for the Badminton Club for over 20 years, but after Kléber’s retirement she accepted the job as general manager of the Hillside Tennis Club. She continued to manage the Hillside with great success for more than 20 years after her husband’s death in December 1984, only retiring after a bad fall.
Joan’s second successful career was in the jewelry business. In the late 1960s she began selling estate jewelry from her home as a sideline and she was so good at it that for several years she owned a shop, Le Petit Coin Doré, on Côte-des-Neiges. Joan had great warmth towards people and she had a wide circle of friends. In 1965 the family purchased a cottage on Dorval Island and Joan loved its village atmosphere. She was a peerless raconteur and her cottage was always open to visitors willing to share a glass of wine and listen to an outrageous story. Her attention to the island’s wildlife and her cross-border shopping expeditions were legendary. She was well loved as an exuberant character, devoted to her British heritage, a great animal-lover (especially cats) and full of fun. Largely immobilized by a second fall in 2021, she was no longer able to live on her beloved Island and moved to Residence Persaud Connemara in Beaconsfield.
There she was looked after through her final years by a kind and caring staff. She is survived by her son Paul of Weybridge, VT, his wife Jan Albers, and their son Evan and his fiancé Amy Ledig; and by her son David of Guelph, Ontario, his wife Michaela Milde, their son Dr. Adam and his wife Dr. Marisa de Souza, and their daughter Emma. She will be greatly missed by all of them, as well as by her extensive family in England.
A visitation will be held at Résidences funéraires Collins Clarke MacGillivray White Funeral Homes, 5610 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal on 26 July 2024 from 2:00 to 6:00pm.
Donations to the Montreal SPCA in Joan’s name are warmly appreciated. https://www.spca.com/en/donate/
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