ROSELYN ALFREDA HELEN JORY

With indescribable sadness, we announce that Rose passed away on Friday, August 22 in St. Boniface Hospital, Winnipeg at the age of 77.

She is survived by Laurence, her husband of 57 years; her children Alexandrea Jory and Leland (Kendra) Jory; her grandchild Steffan Jory; her siblings, Robert (Abby) Small and Valerie (Dennis) Maxwell and their families; and her siblings-in-law, Lynda (Maurice) Huard and Judy (Dan) Hayward and their families. She has gone on to join her parents, Matthew and Laura Small; her parents-in-law, Leland and Elsie Jory; her sister Betty Page; and nephews, David Huard and Graham Thompson.

Rose was born in Winnipeg, in the old Grace Hospital in the Wolseley area, but she was raised a country girl, growing up on Silver Ridge, just east of Alonsa, Manitoba. Some of her fondest memories of childhood had to do with her parents’ small farm: pulling fresh carrots out of the garden, wiping the dirt off on her jeans, and eating them on the spot; sitting up on top of the straw bales, thinking about life and talking to God; watching her mother baking bread and knitting; watching her father tinkering with the car; and riding her old second-hand bicycle up and down the highway in front of the property. She was one of the last generation who remember going to school in a one-room schoolhouse, at Normandin School in the RM of Alonsa.

After finishing her secondary education in the new high school in Alonsa, she moved into Winnipeg and shared an apartment with friends. She worked for Peoples Credit Jewellers and at the periodicals library at the University of Manitoba. She first met her future husband Laurence over the phone, then in person at a small party; when he first saw her, he knew she was the one, and they were married within six months, in the fall of 1967. Alexandrea was born after about a year and a half, then Leland, just over three years later. She moved her small family back and forth between Laurence’s hometown of Exeter, Ontario and Winnipeg, where her parents had moved, but they settled for good in Winnipeg, where they eventually bought their first home.

Being the stay-at-home wife of a long-haul trucker was hard, and she had to deal with a lot of things on her own, raising two children and looking after a new house, and worrying about Laurence when he was on the road. She was supported by her family, and enjoyed regular Saturday shopping excursions with her mother Laura and sister Betty, which almost always turned into an evening of sitting around her parents’ kitchen table playing cards. She also spent time writing, drawing, and pursuing various crafts, particularly cross stitch and crochet, in which she was very skilled.

Although Rose was not a member of any church, she was a very spiritual person, possibly because her maternal great-grandfather Alfred Cook had been an Anglican minister and her father Matthew had been born a Catholic. She always felt that she had a close relationship with God, and considered herself an “unaligned monotheist,” although she was interested in a variety of ideas and belief systems. She was driven to seek the truth and to ask questions, which often made those around her uncomfortable, but which also made her a brilliant conversationalist. There wasn’t anybody with whom she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—strike up a fascinating discussion.

When her children were older, she began to take the occasional trip in the truck with Laurence, and this developed into getting her class 1 license and driving with him as a team for almost ten years. Eventually she decided that she couldn’t be away from home so much, and decided to cut back on the number of trips she made. With the additional time, she decided to follow her daughter’s example and pursue post-secondary education at the University of Winnipeg, where she studied Philosophy and English. She described this experience as “the thing that she’d always been looking for,” and, even though she never completed her degree, she felt that her education had given her what she needed.

Rose came off the road permanently in 2001, when Leland and Kendra had their first child, so she could be there for them and help with the baby. To this end, she and Laurence bought a duplex with them in the Wolseley area, coincidentally just a block from the site of the original Grace Hospital where she’d been born. They lived there until Laurence retired from trucking in 2015, when they moved into an apartment in Osborne Village that they shared with Alexandrea.

As Rose aged, she began to develop some health difficulties: she began to lose her vision and the feeling in her hands due to complications of diabetes, and this made it difficult for her to pursue many of her interests; she suffered a broken hip in a fall at home at the beginning of the first Covid lockdown in March of 2020, which impacted her mobility; and she began to have difficulties with her heart, experiencing a mild cardiac event in 2023. She suffered a major heart attack on Thursday, August 14th and was admitted to the Acute Cardiac Care Unit at St. Boniface Hospital, then moved to the Cardiac unit, where she passed on the 22nd.

We would like to give profound thanks to all the doctors, nurses, and support staff at St Boniface Hospital’s Accute Cardiac Care and Cardiac units. Their kindness and care meant so much to Rose and her family.

HOMECOMING

In my heart, I hear a whisper 

that scarcely breaks the silence,

The whisper of the Master 

who seeks to master none,

That stirs in me a hunger, 

a hunger and a longing,

As though my soul were crying 

to return from whence it's come.

As I listen to the quiet, 

I can feel it slip inside me,

Feel it widen my horizons 

as I seek to understand.

All the stars become my heartbeats; 

all of space contains my soul,

And I see that, knowing nothing, 

knowledge rests within my hand.

-Roselyn Jory

Rose’ family kindly requests that all of her friends and relatives take a few minutes to honour her memory by sharing photos, memories, and stories, using the comment section on this page.

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ETHICAL DEATH CARE

Cremation & Life Celebrations

1833 Portage Avenue - Winnipeg

204-421-5501 - www.ethicaldeathcare.com

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