Donna Logan Van Vliet
Wife, mother, therapeutic touch pioneer. Born on May 10, 1937, in St. Catharines, Ont.; died on May 23, 2016, in Belleville, Ont., of an aneurysm, aged 79.
A born planner and a tranquillity trailblazer, Donna pursued serenity with dogged determination, an apparent contradiction that defined her unique character.
Donna and her brother, Alan, were raised by a strong and loving single mother. No stranger to financial hardship, Donna was determined to control her own life and developed an early interest in education that reflected her practical goal: putting money in the bank.
That led to her job as a record librarian at radio station CKTB in St. Catharines, where she first encountered some of her long-lasting loves: the music of Harry Belafonte, making labels, clipping articles, and documenting the lives of those she loved. After her death, a thick file was found in her cabinet with my name on the label. It held copies of published stories I had recently lost in the wildfires of Fort McMurray, Alta. Once again, Donna's foresight and preparation had paid off.
Over the years, her love of learning transitioned to teaching, particularly in the area of holistic living. Health, she liked to say, was more than the spleen and much of her life was devoted to sharing that insight.
Donna married in 1955, and soon welcomed three children, Mandy, Steven and Lesley. The family moved often for her husband's work, to Vancouver, back to Toronto, to Southeastern Ontario and then to the Quinte area in 1971. With each move Donna followed new educational pursuits, leading to a nursing diploma; that in turn led her to become an early pioneer of what, insisting on the "w," she called "wholistic" health. After her marriage ended in the late 1970s, she embraced the idea of a "healthy self," pursuing interests in nutrition, enlightened travel, and alternative therapies that engaged the body, mind and spirit.
It was at this time that Donna met Lachlan (Rocky) Van Vliet, a former Second World War pilot who later joined Canada's Golden Hawks aerobatics team. It was another seeming contradiction in Donna's life: she quiet, reflective, calm; Rocky robust, direct, a man of action. After marrying, they settled down on the farm in Carrying Place, Ont., where Rocky raised Standardbred harness racers and Donna experimented with organic gardening practices (such as seeding vegetables in a spiral pattern to promote energy flow). For the next 35 years they were never apart, laughing, loving and bickering as they travelled to Rocky's race tracks, Liberal party meetings, and air force reunion dinners; and to Donna's lectures, workshops, and therapeutic touch healing sessions.
For more than three decades, she collaborated with the Therapeutic Touch Network of Ontario, speaking particularly to women of her generation. She also applied her learning to Rocky's harness racing enterprise, providing her healing touch to the legs of horses and, as he cheerfully noted, turning them into winners.
In 2013, Donna was diagnosed with an inoperable aneurysm. She met her final challenge with her characteristic mix of planning and serenity. She wrote detailed notes about the extensive contents of her freezer and the feeding of Hudson, the rescue dog taken in during her last year. She seized every opportunity to share love and wise counsel with her children, grandchildren, friends and therapeutic touch family. Donna left the world as she had lived in it: prepared, and at peace in the arms of her devoted Rocky.
Therese Greenwood is Donna's daughter-in-law.