Joan Morrison Smyth
Joan Morrison, 76th Birthday, February 2023
It has been a warm and wonderful trip back in time reading classmates’ stories. Seeing photos of old friends in elementary school, high school and now in their late 70’s on this website is a remarkable journey. We have all lived such different, interesting lives.
After graduation from TMR High, I attended McGill University (B.A.Psychology). Highlights were playing Women’s Hockey for my fraternity, Kappa Alpha Theta’s team, and being an Expo 67 Canadian Pacific- Cominco Pavilion Hostess, resulting in permission to skip my 3rd year exams. A significant event in my graduating year (other than meeting my future husband), was being Chairman of the McGill Convocation Ball.
After graduation from McGill, I travelled through Europe and was hired that fall by Alcan Fiduciaries Ltd. and sent to train at IBM as a programmer in PL/1, a programming language developed by IBM. Working in Place Ville Marie in those days was very exciting. My Alcan & IBM computer training for Alcan’s switch from DOS to OS, proved crucial to the trajectory of my career. So, in 1991, when we purchased our own company, I was well prepared to manage it’s IT Services, setting up websites and company IT systems for engineering programs and marketing, reaching out to our principals and clients as they came online, worldwide.
I married Rick (McGill B.Sc., MBA) in October 1969 and we moved to Ottawa. There, I worked for a small computer desk top publishing company. In those days, we had back to back 95K computers taking up an entire floor in our building! As a Customer Service Rep, I trained government departments and banks how to input and code their information for desktop publishing. It was razor’s edge technology in 1971 and fun working at the 1st desktop publishing company.
We moved back to Montreal after 2.5 years in Ottawa and my husband became Vice President, Axel Johnson Inc. (a Swedish conglomerate), Canada, Process Equipment Division, and I joined CFCF / CFQR Radio & TV and Champlain Productions. We moved to Ile Cadieux, near Hudson, and had our family there. It was ideal, such a beautiful location on the water with breathtaking sunsets. We lived there for 17 years. I ran for Town Council, a volunteer position (we voted our salaries back into the town’s coffers), and served for 8 years, two terms. My portfolio included Police and Fire Chief c/w badge. It’s hard to believe these days, but I was the 1st woman ever re-elected for a 2nd term in the Province of Quebec. It was front page news in the Montreal Gazette, despite Ile Cadieux being a small town. Thankfully, women in politics have come a long way since then!
When I left CFCF Radio &TV after 9 years, just before the birth of my 2nd child, I was Administrative Assistant to the President, the Executive Vice-President and the Assistant to the President, managing the Executive Suite. Those were fabulous years, working with on-air personalities and skiing at Jay Peak with Gord Sinclair’s family and George Balcan. I was at CFCF through two changes of ownership.
Our kids were born on Ile Cadieux, Shane in 1978 and Tracey-Lee in 1982. We had a daughter in between, Krista, born in 1980. Krista died of Sudden Infant Death (SIDS). Losing her was devastating, but then the birth of Tracey-Lee helped restore our spirits. Our son, Shane, earned a BA (cum laude) from Princeton University 1996-2000, and a Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and was awarded the Lang Michener Prize for placing first in commercial law. He was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 2007. After working for a New York law firm and Boston Consulting Group, Shane is presently Associate Head of School: Strategy, at Lakefield College School (LCS), where he was Head Student. LCS ranks among the best boarding schools in the World. Shane and his wife, Aurora (Director of Client Services at Concrete Design Communications), live in Toronto and have two children, Elliot 9 and Rose 4. Our daughter, Tracey-Lee (UBC - BA English), is Owner of Olive&Ash Photography, a sylish, fine art photography business, specializing in baby, child and family photography and also does many schools’ class/student portraits. Tracey-Lee did voiceovers in elementary and high school and was the voice of Madeline, the TV series, learning a solo for each episode and speaking and singing in English with a French accent. Tracey-Lee attended LCS in Ontario, commuting from BC, like Shane. Both our kids loved performing and were in many productions at LCS. Tracey-Lee is married to Michael Eddy (Director of External Affairs, Cedar LNG) and is a busy Mum with 3 children, Olivia 15, Asher 13 and Isla 10.
After 17 wonderful years on Ile Cadieux, with a business partner, Rick bought Sanitherm Engineering Ltd. (SEL) in 1991, a 50 year old company located in North Vancouver, and we moved out West to BC in 1992. Rick and his Partner built the company up over the years and SEL had hundreds of process equipment installations worldwide when we sold it. I joined SEL in 1994, my past administrative and systems background were a good fit. We sold the company in 2007 and retired. Since then, the company has been sold a few times and now is absorbed into a large U.S. water treatment company. We have been blessed with a busy retirement, extensive travel and keeping up with our 5 grandkids and their activities. Tracey-Lee lives 2 blocks away in North Vancouver and we try and visit Shane and his family in Toronto as often as possible.
At this juncture, we are grateful to have had a fulfilling retirement for 16 years. We spend 5 weeks in Rancho Mirage, CA every November to avoid the wind and rains in Vancouver. We love our location on Grouse Mountain and have lived in our present home for 27 years. Unfortunately, my love of choirs and singing came to an abrupt halt 9 years ago when I experienced Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL) in one ear. Rick was diagnosed with Parkinson’s the same year, so we are thankful we made the decision early in our marriage to travel to far away destinations first, when we were young enough to take on gruelling travel adventures. However, we are both still going strong, just at a slower pace. Rick loves his golf and I love my photography, compiling my years of photo memories into digital albums, spending precious time with the grands and traveling to visit friends spread far and wide now.
It was disappointing to miss the MRHS 50th reunion, especially since Ginny (Tatam) Mulhall and I loved organizing our 25th with an amazing committee of classmates. Unfortunately, we had a family reunion previously planned in California for the same weekend as the 50th. We see Ginny (Tatam) and Steve Mulhall, Margot (McDougall) Carter and Peggy (Darlington) Barusta regularly and my brother Bob and his wife Deb, who have been living on Grand Cayman Island for many years. We are in touch with other classmates via email. The hard part for all of us now is seeing posts of classmates no longer with us and acknowledging the reality we are all suffering increasing painful losses of other close family and friends. I am very sad that our classmate Nancy (Grant) McGregor passed away in January. Nancy and I had been friends on Mitchell Avenue since 5 years old. Ann (McKim) Mason (TMR 1963) and her husband are travelling to BC from Quebec next month to visit and we will be reminiscing about our years of exploits with Nancy. We 3 were inseparable growing up on Mitchell Avenue.
If you managed to read this far… all the very best to classmates near and far. Please look us up if you are ever in Vancouver.
Joan xo
Sunnylands, Rancho Mirage, CA, November 2022
L-R Back Row: Mike Eddy, Shane Smyth, Tracey-Lee (Smyth) Eddy, Aurora Ratcliffe
L-R Front Row: Asher Eddy, Elliot Smyth, Joan, Rose Smyth, Rick, Isla & Olivia Eddy
Rancho Mirage, CA, November 2022
Our 5 Blessings - Isla, Elliot, Asher, Rose, Olivia