Nurse and football player score touchdown… of love

A lifetime of love was the final score when a Winnipeg nurse met a Winnipeg Blue Bomber.

Vona Elizabeth Freeman, who was 79 when she died on June 12, probably didn’t meet Paul Desjardins on the field or stadium after a Blue Bomber game — she likely met him in a hospital. And he probably wasn’t injured.

That’s because Vona was working in the Winnipeg General Hospital’s medical and orthopaedic wards and as clinical investigator in the peripheral vascular department in 1964.

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At the same time, Paul, who had been drafted by the Blue Bombers in 1965, was doing post-graduate work in biochemistry at the University of Manitoba during the off season. Same as now, that work would have been done at the university’s campus adjoining the hospital complex where Vona worked.

Maybe Vona and Paul bumped into each other at the hospital during his first year there, or maybe it was somewhere else. Wherever it was, love tackled them and they married in Dec. 1967.

Before they met, Vona was the typical teen growing up in a rural community. She wasn’t born in a hospital — or even her home. She was born in Mrs. Filby’s Nursing Home in Killarney, Man.

Vona spent her first few years on the family farm before her family moved into town. She played the piano, figure skated, swam at the beach and went to movies at the drive-in and dances at the pavilion.

After marrying, the couple lived in Winnipeg for a few years, Vona nursing and Paul playing football. Their daughter, Michelle, was born in 1970.

That year, with his PhD complete, Paul told the Bombers he had played his last game and the family moved to California so he could pursue a post-doctorate fellowship.

As for Vona, she left nursing to raise her daughter. Two more children were born to the family the next few years, as the family followed Paul’s medical and footballs careers in California and Toronto.

But Vona didn’t leave nursing forever. After a 10-year break, she took a nursing refresher course and returned to working in the very hospital she had first trained in almost two decades earlier — now called the Health Sciences Centre. She worked in geriatrics until retiring in 1996.

Vona was known for being a very organized and determined woman, which came to the forefront when she had to push for services to assist her son, Jason who participated in sports with Special Olympics Manitoba.

A few years ago, Vona’s health began to deteriorate, beginning with her falling, then escalating to muscle weakness. By 2020 the family made the decision to move to Birtle, Man., to be closer to their son Steve and his family. She received in-home care for the first year, but last year she was moved to a long-term care home.

Vona was visited by Paul almost every day — sometimes more than once — and he was at her side when she died.

The nurse and the football-playing doctor were together for 54 years.

Besides her husband and three children, Vona is survived by seven grandchildren and other family members. Read more about Vona. 

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How They Lived

Here’s some interesting people I found looking through recent pages of the Free Press’ Passages section.

All these years the comic books and movies had us believe Peter Parker was Spiderman — turns out it was Vasyl Gojan of Winnipeg.

The family of Vasyl, who died on June 14, said he died of complications from the bite of a radioactive spider the led him to years of crime fighting and a years long battle with cancer.

“Civilians and families will recognize him best as Spiderman and thank him for his many years of protecting our city,” his obituary says.

In real life, Vasyl’s secret identity was as a city worker and a class 1 truck driver. Read more about Vasyl. 

Pat Ritchie was a trailblazer in law here.

Pat, who was 81 when she died on June 11, was in law school before she got married and she was unique — she was the only woman to graduate from her law class.

In fact, Pat’s professors would point out the rarity she was when they began to address the class each day saying “Gentleman — and Miss Watson”.

After law school, she was hired by a law firm as an associate and later set up her own law practice.

And the trailblazer Pat was in law school continued through her career: she was later honoured with being named Queen’s Counsel, one of the first women to get that designation in Manitoba. Read more about Pat. 

Bob Major was a painter — and a bit of a daredevil.

That’s because Bob, who died on June 13 at 99, had no problem working outside painting the highest windows on the buildings at the places he worked at, Eaton’s and Deer Lodge Hospital.

Then, after hours, he continued doing things high above, including paragliding and skydiving. In fact, Bob’s last jump was when he was 91.

But Bob was also grounded — or should I say he did some things on the ground. During his retirement he restored stationary engines and then the trailers to put them on so he could take them to agricultural shows in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Read more about Bob. 

It may never have turned into Weldon Turner Overdrive but Warren Weldon did play with one half of the famous band.

Warren, who was 83 when he died on June 17, played the saxophone and at one point he was playing in a band, Roy Mickey and the Downbeats, with Fred Turner. Turner, of course, went on to help found Bachman Turner Overdrive while Warren continued playing in evenings and on weekends with the band which was renamed The Many Others after the frontman retired.

Meanwhile, Warren was working with the CBC — he was hired as a mail delivery boy in 1959. He briefly worked in the accounting department, but then became an assistant film editor and film editor.

When the film department needed an assistant film cameraman in 1968, they decided to rotate all of the editors through to see who would get the job. After Warren did the first stint, and shot a one hour documentary on the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, CBC picked him for the position.

Warren went on to work on documentaries, dramas, and network shows including 24 Hours, Points West, Country Canada and Sesame Street and was able to retire at 54.

But Warren didn’t forget music. In retirement he played with The Twilights. Read more about Warren. 

A Life’s Story

One of Boyd Barber’s legacies is the music of his son.

But Boyd, who died last September at 72, was a musician in his own right.

Boyd taught his son, Del, to play the guitar and they wrote songs together.

SUPPLIEDBoyd Barber enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in the late 1960s and was serving on the HMCS Kootenay in 1969 when it suffered a massive explosion while on exercise off the coast of the U.K.

“His voice is still in my head, 100 per cent,” Del told writer Jim Timlick recently. “He had a pretty direct way of talking and I agree with him. It’s allowed me to figure out how to write about other people’s worries and tap into those images and characters. I pretty much owe him everything for that.”

But Boyd story started earlier: he came to Canada from the United States after family urged him to to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam war.

Read more about Boyd’s life. 

Until next time I hope you continue to write your own life’s story.

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