Catherine Elias

Catherine Elias died peacefully surrounded by family on Tuesday April 2, 2019.

Beloved wife of Allen Elias, devoted mother of Gillian and Clare (Gavin Barber) and sister to Joe MacDonald and Charles McDonald (Brenda).

Predeceased by her parents, James and Bernadette McDonald and her sister, Iola Campbell.

Kay was an enthusiastic music lover and won medals for piano in her childhood in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She excelled in school and became a pediatric nurse, working in Halifax and then moving to Toronto where she taught pediatric nursing at Sick Children’s Hospital. Through mutual friends, she met Allen and they married in 1972. Allen introduced her to various sports including skating and skiing, but she refused to do moguls! Kay and Allen shared a passion for books, especially history. In 1975, Kay retired from nursing to be a full-time mom to her daughters.

Kay enjoyed hosting dinner parties and was a great baker, teaching her daughters many tricks in the kitchen. Kay was keen on politics and history and despite her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia wanted to follow the news of Brexit up until about two weeks before she died. She adored her visits to Europe to visit her daughter Gillian and her niece Karene when they lived abroad. Kay was a tremendous cat lover as well as an avid gardener in her later life in Toronto and shared these passions with her dear neighbors, Ron and Jean Taylor and Georgie and Jens McVeigh.

The cycle of life will be complete when Clare’s daughter is born, expected April 6, 2019, and to be named Elyanna Catherine Elias Barber.

A celebration of Catherine’s life will be held at the family home on Saturday April 6, 2019.

We would like to extend our immense appreciation to Kay’s nieces Karene (McDonald) Dumoulin and Stephanie McDonald and to her nephew, David Campbell, for the very special attention they showed Kay in these last months as well as to the staff at Centenary and Sunnybrook hospitals and at The Millwood where she resided for the last 4 months of her life.

Donations can be made to the charities important to Catherine, which include:

Mercy Ships https://mercyships.ca/

Plan International www.plancanada.ca

Alzheimer’s Society of Canada https://alzheimer.ca/en/Home

Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada www.mssociety.ca

Cancer Society www.cancer.ca

Sunnybrook Hospital Foundation https://sunnybrook.ca/foundation/