Obituary of Johanna Tina McKenzie
Johanna McKenzie, born on March 7, 1938 in Coaldale, Alberta, died on Saturday June 28, 2025 at Lanark Lodge in Perth, Ontario. She had been battling a rare and painful form of lymphoma for several years and is mercifully at rest.
Though diminished by disease and dementia at the end of her life, Johanna, known to many as Jo, spent her final days as she had the rest of her life – caring for others. She found meaning in serving – her children, her late husband, her siblings, her grandchildren and many others - though she was sometimes uncomfortable when attention and adoration was invariably poured back onto her.
Born Johanna Tina Willms, Jo was the daughter of Abram and Susanna, German-speaking Mennonite immigrant farmers who had settled in Alberta. As the second-youngest of 11 children – Jake, Abe, Susie, Helen, Mary, Henry, Ann, Margaret, David and Betty – she was raised in poverty and hardship – her earliest years were spent in a farmhouse with a dirt floor. Yet she also received much love. Of her siblings, all but Ann of Surrey, B.C. have predeceased her, though she is remembered fondly by her nieces, nephews and in-laws, many of them still in Alberta.
While at teacher’s college in the late 1960s, Jo met her future husband and best friend, Colin, a gangly, smart and quirky Scottish Canadian. They married in 1968 and expanded each other’s worlds, raising three children – Glenn, Paula and Greg – and taking them from Edmonton to Brooks, Alberta, interrupted by a year-long adventure in Lusaka, Zambia. Jo was devastated when Colin died of cancer in 2002.
Together, the couple taught their children to trust in their abilities, work hard and try to make a positive difference. Jo was intensely proud of her kids but often less interested in their career successes than in whether they were happy and fulfilled. Paula became an Olympic athlete and a mother of two, Kai and Grady, in Calgary with her partner Kim. Greg followed his father’s footsteps as a scientist, in the U.S. including Boston, Massachusetts, where he and his partner Mary-Jane raised their son Colin. Glenn became a foreign correspondent in Africa and later a farmer in Lanark County. He is dad to Rowan and Matthew and partner to Merydth.
Following Colin’s death, Jo bravely chose to shake up her life so that she could continue to positively impact others’. She moved first to Calgary, then Lethbridge, then Perth, places where she believed she could contribute the most. In Lethbridge, she helped care for four of her beloved older sisters in their final years. After moving to Perth in July 2015, she was a volunteer tutor at Queen Elizabeth School and a part-time caregiver for two of her grandsons, with whom she ensured her lifelong passion for gardening and growing food lives on.
Jo made deep, meaningful friendships wherever she went. She was also the glue that held her immediate family together. She could be extremely wilful and stubborn at times, easy to hurt or occasionally even quick to anger. She sought authenticity in herself and others and was not afraid of an argument, but if she realized she had hurt someone, she would be overcome with the need to apologize and learn from her mistakes. She was obsessed with being fair, quick to forgive and give space to all who asked for it. Self-improvement was a life-long goal for her that included drinking copious amounts of water, eating healthy, communicating her feelings – and persistently expressing a desire to understand others’ inner selves. She enjoyed reading and taking long, brisk walks; children on her grandsons’ bus in Perth in the years preceding the pandemic of 2020 called her ‘speedy grandma’ because she would sometimes walk to school faster than the bus.
During the final chapter of her life, disease slowly robbed her of most memories, yet gratitude and love remained at the core of who she was to the end. She beamed at the arrival of visiting family and would pepper her grandsons’ foreheads with kisses, though their names may have sometimes slipped her mind. She frequently apologized to the caring and attentive staff of Lanark Lodge if her disease caused her to cry out in pain or discomfort.
Johanna’s family are heartbroken but also relieved she is no longer in pain. As one of her closest friends remarked, the world was a much kinder, more honest place with her in it.
She regularly attended the Brooks United Church and later St. Paul’s United Church in Perth. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to any of the many charities Jo supported. She was devoted to helping children in need, building peace, protecting nature and cancer research. Some of the organizations she regularly contributed to included: Project Ploughshares, The Canadian Foodgrains Bank and CAUSE Canada. Lanark Lodge also accepts contributions for their important work.
Arrangements are in the care of Blair & Son Funeral Home, Perth.
