Evelyn Hope (Hardy) Fairley (1917 - 2012)

Born 10 Sep 1917 in Lockeport, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Canada

Ancestors

Wife of Ross Alexander Brown — married 9 Mar 1944 in Belleville Prince Edward County , Ontario

Died 17 Feb 2012 at age 94 in Gananoque, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Evelyn Hope (Hardy) Fairley - Sept. 10, 1917 – Feb. 17, 2012. Hope died in her apartment at Fox Run Retirement Residence in Gananoque, Ontario on February 17, 2012 in her 95th year of life. Born in Lockeport, Nova Scotia September 10, 1917, one of six children (Richard, Frank, Charlotte, Allen and Ernest) of Frank Hayden Hardy and Charlotte Spearwater Allen, she grew up in Allendale Nova Scotia. Hope was a life long educator and started her teaching career in Jordan Ferry, Nova Scotia in 1938 in a one room school house after attending Normal School in Truro, NS in 1937. She was a WWII veteran of the RCAF Women’s Division and near the end of the war met Ross Alexander Fairley, a handsome and dashing RCAF Sergeant returning from overseas. They were married at RCAF Station Mountain View in Ontario on March 9, 1944. They started a family and were blessed with two wonderful sons Donald and David. After the war they moved to Toronto, ON and then to Ajax, ON, where Hope taught for many years. In 1962 they moved back to Toronto where Hope resided in the same house on Chester Hill Rd., until 2010, when she moved to Gananoque to be closer to son David. During her years in Toronto, Hope taught at George Brown College until her retirement in 1979. Her primary skills were in teaching English to hundreds of immigrants to Canada. During the fifties and sixties she decided that she wanted a university degree and she started taking night school and summer classes and earned her bachelor degree in Psychology from York University in Toronto in 1964. Hope loved the ocean and was a life long swimmer. She was a member of the University of Toronto Athletic Center where she swam on a daily basis and met some of her dearest friends over the years. Her other great passion was spending her winters in Hawaii, specifically Waikiki Beach where she enjoyed herself for 31 winters, made countless friends and swam in the ocean every day. Hope was a kind, generous and loving Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother. In addition to her sons, Donald Fairley and his spouse Tess Dunhoff, David Fairley and his spouse Janet Cross, she is survived by her grandsons Charles and spouse Gillian Fairley, Russel and spouse Heidi Pazulla, John and spouse Heather Fairley, her step granddaughter Danielle Bayonne- Gill and spouse Trevor Gill, her step grandson Nathan Dunhoff and her great grandson Grayson Fairley and great-granddaughter Jocelyn Fairley and step great grandson Shane Gill. A baby girl Fairley is also expected in June. She was our family’s matriarch, our source of knowledge and wisdom, our history keeper, our story teller our shining example of how to live life. It is the end of an era. She will be sorely missed by her family and friends but her long, full and most interesting life is to be rejoiced. There will be a celebration of her life for her family and friends on April 14, 2012 from 2pm to 5pm at The University of Toronto Faculty Club. Her ashes will be scattered in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and interred at Osborne Cemetery on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.

Sources

• Toronto Star on Mar. 10, 2012

Mrs. Hope (Hardy) Fairley