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Wilhelmina Carleton loved to help people — and that became her career.
Wilhelmina, who was known as Willy, was born in the Netherlands as the youngest of four sisters and three brothers, before coming to Canada with her family as a child.
She celebrated her seventh birthday while crossing the Atlantic in 1953.
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The family first lived in St. Eustache, working for a year for the farmer who had sponsored them to come to Canada, before moving to West St. Paul where they bought a mink farm.
Willy went to school in St. Andrews, then on to Selkirk Collegiate and the University of Manitoba. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967.
That’s when she moved to Saskatoon to work for the province’s department of social services and help give financial assistance to people in need.
Willy found she loved to help people.
And she not only received skills and training in the field of social services, she met her husband, Ed, who worked in the same area. They married in 1971.
Three years later, the couple moved to Manitoba, so Willy could be closer to family.
While Ed worked with Correctional Service Canada, she still wanted to help people, so she went back to school and graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work degree.
She began working for the John Howard and Elizabeth Fry Society until the agencies split in 1983, and she chose to stay with the John Howard Society. She was the agency’s director of client services helping people in the justice system.
Willy was also the agency’s facilitator for the Manitoba chapter of The Prison Arts Foundation, to encourage the creative talents of prisoners in correctional facilities. That made a lot of sense because, as it turns out, Willy herself was an artist.
After retiring from the John Howard Society in 2005, she went back to university again, this time graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
She went on to become an award-winning artist specializing in fibre artwork. She was even accepted to the World of Threads Festival in 2014, allowing her to meet with artists from around the world.
Willy was 77 when she died on Jan. 31. She is survived by a son, one brother and two sisters.
Read more about Willy.
How They Lived
Carm Colvin was leading weekly music jams in Carman at the age of 104, a year before he died.
Carm, who died on March 3, served in the Second World War, owned and operated Carman Cleaners, operated a fleet of school vans and buses for years, and worked at the local Co-op gas station and managed its dry-goods department before retiring.
But while Carm did many things in life, his family says the one constant for him was playing music.
He began as a child and, while he played several other instruments, too, it was the sound of the banjo he loved best. He played with many bands and groups over 90 years and was still playing regularly at jam nights at the Carman Legion, Boyne Lodge, and Riverview Legion Place.
Carm was inducted into the Manitoba Fiddle Association Wall of Fame in 2010.
Read more about Carm.
Judith Samson worked with television stars.
Judith, who died on Feb. 24 at 86, graduated from the University of Manitoba and headed to Toronto for a career in advertising.
She was an award-winning advertising creative director, and met and worked with stars such as William Shatner (Star Trek) and Bea Arthur (Maude/Golden Girls).
Read more about Judith.
John Gibson was part of the team which first put CBC-TV on the air in 1952.
And John, who was 98 when he died on March 2, didn’t stop there. He was pivotal in the construction of a new station and studio in Winnipeg in 1954.
He began his career in broadcasting in radio, at CKY, which became CBC’s CBW, before moving to television. He retired as CBC’s technical operations director.
Read more about John.
Patti Smith was the first woman to work as a Canada Post letter carrier here.
But Patti, who died on Feb. 17 at 72, didn’t intend to spend her career with the postal service. She was using the job to pay for her university tuition.
Patti later operated the Ottawa branch of Fashion Party, which brought fashion shows into homes and businesses. She later helped seniors through ParaMed home health care services.
Earlier in life, she was part of a crowd of kids that skipped school to head to the Winnipeg Airport to see the Beatles when their plane stopped to refuel on Aug. 18, 1964. Her parents would have been none the wiser — if they hadn’t spotted her on the television news that night.
Read more about Patti.
Ulysses Desrochers was born into a farm family and went on to help some of Winnipeg’s most vulnerable youth.
Ulysses, who was 83 when he died on March 3, left the farm to get his social work degree. He was hired by Child and Family Services of Manitoba in 1961 and later was hired by MacDonald Youth Services to be its first case manager in 1969.
He went on to become the organization’s executive director from 1980 to his retirement in 2002.
Read more about Ulysses.
Martha Dueck was 14 when a fellow two years older than her wrote her a love poem and had it published in the Manitoba Co-operator.
Not surprisingly, Martha wasn’t happy — and Raymond almost lost her while being teased relentlessly. But she forgave him, married him five years later, and they were together for 52 years.
Martha also worked together with her husband at Canadian LifeLight Ministries, where she helped to edit and publish more than 250,000 Scriptures.
Read more about Martha.
Leon Johnson recorded sound for movies and television shows.
Leon, who was 79 when he died on March 10, 2023, was a founder and the first coordinator of the Winnipeg Film Group.
He made several of his own films, including Royal Tower, which is in the National Gallery of Canada’s video collection, while being mentored in sound recording.
As a sound recorder and mixer, he was the first to record digital sound for a major movie, Heartland, for IMAX, and did 150 movies and TV shows including the movies Capote, The Arrow, and A Dog’s Purpose, and the TV show Less than Kind.
He also was nominated for, and won, several Gemini Awards for his work.
Read more about Leon.
A Life’s Story
Rev. Dr. Paul Marshall just had a way with people.
Paul, who was 80 when he died on July 5, was a minister for the United Church of Canada.
In 2022, Ethel and Rev. Dr. Paul Campbell attended a family gathering in Teulon, where they celebrated Paul’s 80th birthday. Paul died on July 5 at the age of 80. (Supplied)
Lifelong friend Bob Haverluck said Paul “had a wonderful capacity to attend to folks. Paul worked with communities and individuals in negotiating conflicts, difficult decisions about paths to seek. Mainly, Paul simply tried to live what he believed.”
To read more about Paul’s life go here.
Until next time, I hope you continue to write your own life’s story.
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