Doris May Yungblut
Basketball player, nurse, wife, great-grandmother. Born on Oct. 2, 1917, in Niagara Falls, Ont.; died on March 18, 2015, in Welland, Ont., of natural causes, aged 97.
Doris MacLeod was born during the coal-rationing years of the First World War, the eldest in a family seven children, and spent her formative years on an Ontario farm in the depths of the Great Depression. But she never lost her sense of humour or her positive outlook on life.
As a teenager, she grew to 5 foot 10 inches tall, and used her height and athletic skill to lead the Stamford Collegiate basketball team in Niagara Falls to at least one all-city championship. Years later, she was proud to see a granddaughter become a star on Brock University's basketball team.
In 1941, Doris graduated from the Mack Institute of Nursing in St. Catharines and went to work as a nurse. A year later she married a handsome farmer, Russel Yungblut, whom she knew through farm organizations. For the next 20 years, the old, drafty farmhouse, with no indoor plumbing initially, would be the home where they raised four sons and three daughters. As time and money permitted, Russel built a new house next to the old one; it was finally finished in 1962 and would be Doris's beloved home for the rest of her life.
Modern chefs and chic restaurants may think they have invented the local food movement, but in her day it was a necessity. From rhubarb and asparagus in the spring, to Concord grapes and Spy apples in the fall, our farm, and others nearby, provided a constant supply of fruits and vegetables to be picked, canned, pickled, frozen or made into jams and jellies. Her daughters were often conscripted to help out and developed lifelong skills in preserving. The farm also provided chickens for our table, beef from cattle culled from the dairy herd, and pork for our own use and for sale.
There were many lean times for farmers, and money was often scarce. Doris supplemented the "baby bonus" cheques with an egg route in nearby Thorold. Every Saturday morning, with one helpful child in tow, she would deliver eggs to 20 or more customers. Her earnings, and any remaining eggs, were taken to a local grocer to buy the necessities we couldn't produce on the farm.
Community service was important to Doris. She was deeply involved with the Women's Institute and was awarded an honorary life membership for her service. She was the first female warden at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Fonthill, and given an Order of Niagara in 2006 for dedicated service to the church from the Anglican diocese. In later years, she volunteered as a driver for the Children's Aid Society and regularly visited neighbours and relatives needing support.
After Russel's passing in 2002, she lived on her own for the rest of her life, grateful for family support but staunchly independent. Doris was deeply proud of her Scottish heritage, which stretched back to the Isle of Raasay near Skye, and made sure her MacLeod clan gathered every November to renew ties and give younger members a sense of their heritage.
She outlived her six siblings, her husband and his eight siblings, and was the beloved matriarch for three generations, including 17 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, plus the extended Yungblut and MacLeod clans. None of us ever needed to join Facebook, because Doris kept track of those we cared about and kept everyone up-to-date. Without our guiding force, we are learning we must make do on our own.
Doug Yungblut is Doris's middle child.