We’re sad to report that we’ve lost our beloved mother and grandmother. Alice Brennan passed away peacefully on November 28, 2017, in Victoria General Hospital, only six weeks shy of her ninety-third birthday.
She was born Enid Alice Moore on January 8, 1925, in Whitgift, a tiny village on the River Ouse in Yorkshire, England. She trained to be a teacher in Scarborough, where she and her classmates loved to push a piano over to the window and belt out tunes to confuse the soldiers drilling in the square below. By the time World War II ended, she was in Birmingham beginning her career. Two years later, she was back in Goole, near Whitgift, serving as a headmistress. At 26, she was the youngest woman in West Yorkshire to have stepped into that role.
Wartime training brought an Irish Guard named Paddy Brennan to Yorkshire and into Alice’s life. They were married in 1951. After two years in Northern Rhodesia, they moved to Victoria in 1954. Kate, Jude, and Pat were born over the next four years, and Alice devoted herself to our upbringing. She loved books and animals, and sometimes commented that in another life she might have been an ornithologist or a wildlife photographer.
Mourning Alice are her daughter Kate, son-in-law William, grandson Adam, great-granddaughter Monroe, grandson Evan, daughter Jude, son Pat, daughter-in-law Anne, and extended family members Mili and Teri-Lynne.
We thank Dr. Jim Stockdill for taking care of our mother and grandmother these last few years. We also thank the 4 AB staff at Victoria General Hospital for their wonderful care in recent weeks.
Please join us as we celebrate Alice’s life at 11:00 am on Monday, December 11, 2017 in the Sequoia Centre at McCall Gardens, 4665 Falaise Drive in Royal Oak. In lieu of flowers, we’d be grateful for donations to the SPCA http://www.spca.bc.ca/branches/victoria/ or the Times Colonist Christmas Fund https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/14772.
Condolences may be offered to the family below.
McCall Gardens
www.mccallgardens.com
-
Keith Bristow
-
Hazel Leigh Sorry to hear about your Mum. We have good memories of our stay with your parents when we visited Canada. Love to you all and thinking about you at this sad time .
Hazel x
-
Sandy Stewart Sincere condolences to the Brennan Family. Alice and Paddy were good friends to my parents. May she rest in peace.
-
Pam Ahl Jude, Kate, Pat & all your loving family.
I have so many wonderful memories of all of you. Your warm bright kitchen where all were welcome. Many great dinners (I loved beef dip Mondays). And your parents st paddies parties;food, cards and whiskey (your dad’s contribution).
Your Mom’s twinkling eyes and smart asides. She called it like it was, but always with love and humour.
And they brought you three into the world!
They will always be with you and all of us, I grieve with you all, but I’m smiling, thinking of all she gave me.
And I still have my Jude BFF
-
Ralph Dafoe Sorry to hear about your mother Pat. Let’s reconnect….I don’t see a link to SPCA but I’ll donate there.
Ralph
250-893-0262
Your mother was my wonderful Headmistress at Primary School (Ousefleet County Primary) and I have many fond memories of those days. I am forever grateful to her for shaping my early learning and setting me on the road to a lifetime in education.