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Dr. Joe Meek was a veterinarian, and he wanted to work with more than just dogs and cats.
Joe, who was 88 when he died on March 30, loved working with large animals.
He enjoyed the job so much, he didn’t retire from working with horses at Assiniboia Downs until he was 85. He was the Manitoba Horse Racing Commission’s veterinarian at the horse track for 53 years.
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“Retirement was very difficult for a man who only knew about hard physical work,” his family said in his obituary.
“An issue with vestibular loss forced this decision, because we know that otherwise he would have been getting ready for another race season.”
Joe was born in Cannington, Ont., and he grew up in that province. The family didn’t have much money, and Joe learned at a young age to work hard. He did small jobs to bring in some money for the family starting when he was only five years old.
“His resilience to survive was instilled in him for life,” his family says.
Through a combination of summer construction jobs, delivering ice cream for a dairy, and working for Ontario Hydro, Joe scraped together enough money to attend the Ontario Veterinary College, graduating in 1964.
Joe might have spent his career tending to animals somewhere in Ontario, were it not for a chance meeting with a flight attendant. She was Diane and she was originally from Domain, Man.
Joe decided go west for both career and love, and that’s why he set up his first veterinary practice in Arborg.
Joe and Diane worked around the clock with small and large animals in the Interlake, sometimes receiving payment in poultry if a farmer didn’t have cash for their services.
A few years later, Joe opened the McPhillips Animal Hospital in Winnipeg — but it wasn’t long before he realized he missed tending to the large animals he’d helped on farms. So Joe joined the Manitoba Horse Racing Commission.
That wasn’t his full-time job – during the day he was the province’s chief field veterinarian for more than 20 years. He also served on the Manitoba Veterinary Board and somehow also found the time to be the on-staff veterinarian for Weiller and Williams at the Winnipeg Livestock Auction Mart.
“He loved all animals and was thankful for many years to have cattle of his own throughout Manitoba,” his family says.
“He lived a very full life, far too filled to summarize. He knew that the importance of life was not in what you had, but rather who you had.”
Joe was predeceased by his wife, Diane, and a son. He is survived by a daughter, three grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and other relatives.
Read more about Joe.
How They Lived
Longtime lawyer Sandra Swystun was on the dean’s list in university — but not, at first, for law.
Sandra, who was 68 when she died on Nov. 1, made the dean’s list for commerce at the University of Manitoba before switching to law. But, once again, she was on the dean’s list at Osgoode Hall in Toronto.
She articled in Winnipeg and then worked with the federal government in Ottawa before moving to a Toronto law firm.
Sandra later returned to Winnipeg, where she worked at the province’s justice department and then two national agricultural corporations.
When she retired, she worked a term at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Read more about Sandra.
Lorraine Hercus and her husband loved camping with their kids.
But they didn’t like camping in a tent in cold and wet weather – so Lorraine and her husband developed a camping trailer, and the iconic Boler was born.
Lorraine was 86 when she died on April 3.
Read more about Lorraine.
Colleen Drew was good at paying people.
Colleen, who was 67 when she died on March 22, was payroll manager at Manitoba Hydro.
She was so good at payroll that she went on to teach on the subject at Red River College — and even after retiring had several payroll contracts.
Read more about Colleen.
Eugenia Ellie used to joke that her husband “made the bread and butter and she made the jam.”
Eugenia, who 93 when she died on Jan. 14, was a member of the Winnipeg Real Estate Board for more than 40 years and was a fellow of the Real Estate Institute of Canada.
After her kids left home and she retired from real estate, she opened Ellie’s Bed and Breakfast.
Read more about Eugenia.
Lorraine Oughton was always up for Scrabble — and her family had an extra 10 years to play the game with her.
A decade before Lorraine died on April 5 at age 80, three “angels” performed CPR on her.
It’s why her daughter said, “Death was afraid of our mother.”
It’s also why the family is asking for donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation in her memory.
Read more about Lorraine.
A Life’s Story
Some might not see the forest for the trees, but Mike Allen spent his career helping the trees everyone could see.
Mike was the City of Winnipeg’s urban forester from 1988 to 2001, before opening up his own tree service.
There were few things Mike Allen didn’t know about trees, especially those on the Prairies. (Joe Bryksa / Free Press files)
He became known as Dr. Tree in Winnipeg and he is credited for stopping Hollywood producers from chopping down trees in the Exchange District for a Brad Pitt movie, but also for creating an urban forestry program known for success in maintaining the city’s green canopy.
“He was always very interested in tackling problems, be it a single tree, a group of trees, or policies the city should be looking into,” said Richard Westwood, a director of the University of Winnipeg’s Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research.
“He really wanted to see Winnipeg as treed and as beautiful a place as he could make it.”
Read more about Mike.
Until next time, I hope you continue to write your own life’s story.
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