Our Mother, Sister, Aunt, Grandmother and Great Grandmother left us on October 28, 2024 to join her husband, our Dad, John Edward (Jack) Hamilton after a 3 year struggle with her health.
Mom was born in Toronto to Fred & Ida(nee Mason) Keenan. She briefly attended school there but lived the majority of her young life in Latchford, Ontario. Mom attended high school in Cobalt, where she met the love of her life, Jack Hamilton. They finished high school as a couple, remaining so until Dad’s passing in 2005. Mom went on to Normal School in North Bay, to get her teaching certificate, while Dad worked for a year so that they could get married on August 23, 1954.
In 1955 they started their family with Tom, John, Diana and Doug all coming along in quick succession. Patrick delayed his arrival until the early 1960’s making the family complete.
Mom and Dad lived in many places over their lives including Renfrew, Madawaska, White River, Thunder Bay, Kirkland Lake,Englehart & Dowling before finally returning to live in Mokomon,Ontario in the early 2000’s.
Mom travelled extensively with Dad after his retirement in 1988. They lived half the year on Vancouver Island and the other half, on Lake Superior at Bay’s End, east of Thunder Bay. Over this time Mom and Dad developed an abiding love for Lake Superior that remains with her family to this day. Many months were spent camping on the islands between Thunder Bay and Rossport,Ontario not to mention earlier adventures canoeing to James Bay with and without the rest of the family.
Mom was a very independent woman. For the past 19 years she has lived on her own in Mokomon and for most of that time she heated her home with wood, using 13 face cords a year. Most of that she piled on her own with some family help. Her life centred around keeping the fires burning each winter, until she was 85.
Mom was predeceased by her husband Jack, parents Fred and Ida Keenan, brother Jim, daughter in law Leslie, sister in law Fran, Dad’s parents Tom & Kay Hamilton, brother in law Wilmot & sister in law, Laura.
Left to mourn Mom & celebrate her life are her sister Sheila(Robert) and their four children, sister in law Sheelagh and her two boys, her brother Jim’s four children, Mom’s & Dad’s children: Tom(Janice), John, Diana, Doug(Rosalie), Patrick(Carolyn), Mom’s seven grandchildren: John(Nicole), Erin, Ryan(Lili),Brendan(Byron),Natasha(Ryan),Brooke(Rob) and Melissa(Ryan), Mom’s three great grandchildren(Seraine, Sterling and Jack), along with extended family across Canada and Ireland.
Mom enjoyed poetry and composed it often. Here is an excerpt from a favourite that she wrote:
Ode to a Seagull
Turning, wheeling, climbing far ,On the thermals you ascend.
What a graceful thing you are!
Wings of beauty, wings that bend,
To the shore.
If no longer I am me and must choose another goal.
Might it be the wild and free where I seek to loose my soul
To their cry.
Barbara Hamilton, Lake Superior 1995
