In Memoriam: Florence Boyd-Graham

The Pass­ing of a Grand Woman
Flo­rence Boyd-Gra­ham: Dec 22, 1913 — Nov 24, 2009

Flo­rence was born in Toron­to into the era of the First World War, lived through The Great Depres­sion, and with her hus­band, Lt Cdr William A. Gra­ham (RCN, RN, RCNR) and four (soon five) chil­dren, sur­vived the Sec­ond World War in Hal­i­fax, Nova Scotia.

The fam­i­ly moved back to Toron­to, did anoth­er NS stint fol­lowed by over 50 years based in Oakridge Acres, Lon­don. Los­ing her moth­er Nell at age 15 impact­ed her great­ly: she ded­i­cat­ed her­self to moth­er­ing, fol­lowed by first class grand and great-grand-mothering.

Hav­ing seen her chil­dren through the var­i­ous lev­els of high­er edu­ca­tion, she returned to Uni­ver­si­ty (the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Ontario) her­self in her late 70s, grad­u­at­ing with a BA/Hons BA (but did an equiv­a­lent of an MA) in Phi­los­o­phy. Dur­ing these years, she worked in Vet­er­ans Affairs, was a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Church, the Uni­tar­i­an Fel­low­ship (a ded­i­cat­ed choir mem­ber in both), and the Albert Schweitzer Soci­ety, fol­lowed by the Rag­ing Grannies (add ‘Rev­el­ing,’ she always said) who sing protest songs for good causes.

On the envi­ron­men­tal front, in 1962 she brought home Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, got involved in ‘Pol­lu­tion Probe’ and The Coop Store. An active mem­ber of CFUW and the Oakridge Ratepay­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, she nev­er ceased doing pub­lic service.

She trav­elled wide­ly to vis­it her chil­dren far and wide, and became a fond sup­port­er of The Find­horn Com­mu­ni­ty in NE Scot­land (where she vis­it­ed eight times).

Her favourite gath­er­ings were her local week­ly ‘cof­fee group’ with dear friends Pat Dins­more and the late Eve­lyn March, her month­ly book club with David Smith and friends—and of course good-spir­it­ed bridge parties!

Flo­rence was, in essence, a grass­roots philoso­pher who spoke her mind, whose search for ‘truth’ was unstint­ing. Her inter­ests were both wide-rang­ing and breath­tak­ing. Our fam­i­ly home, ‘540’, was vir­tu­al­ly an Open House for over 50 years, fea­tur­ing notable par­ties, work­shops and late night ses­sions. She brought the World into the Cana­di­an sub­urbs and turned her back­yard into a wood­land wildlife haven. She rep­re­sent­ed the best Cana­da can boast of: A Grand Woman—not a ‘lady’, she said, that smacked too much of ‘the aristocratic’.

Our world is less with­out her phys­i­cal pres­ence, but indeed, she walks tall amongst us in the best of Cana­di­an life, what made us Cana­da from 1913–2009, and through her sur­viv­ing chil­dren, Robert, Joan, Leona and Ralph—her dar­ling youngest son Ian passed away in 2005—and final­ly through her grand-chil­dren Lau­ra, John, Bruce, Nathalie, Kim-Ellen, Lila, Alex, Lara and Dan­ny; and her great-grand­chil­dren Gabriel­la, Gar­rett, Sean, Geordy and Charlton.

Fly high and free ‘Sophia’-Florence, as you trav­el the heights with Socrates and Plato—and of course, the Great Sappho.

A memo­r­i­al ser­vice was held at Mt Pleas­ant Chapel on Fri­day Decem­ber 4 from 1–2pm (see pro­gramme below).

Memo­r­i­al pro­gramme — click for PDF

Main pho­to cour­tesy of the Lon­don Free Press