Florence Esther Jean Willitts
Mother, nurse, volunteer, defender of justice. Born on March 15, 1928, in Culross, Ont.; died on Oct. 4, 2015, in Newmarket, Ont., of natural causes, aged 87.
My mom gave birth to me twice. In 1956, after delivering me, her first son and third child, Jean Willitts moved to Mount Albert, Ont., with her husband, Donald, to open a veterinary practice in what was then a farming community.
Their brood swelled to six – two daughters, four sons – and the kitchen became command central as Mom directed Dad over the side roads by CB radio, did the billing for the vet practice at the table, and made sure we were well fed. She baked pies, canned vegetables, stewed moose meat and made vats of strawberry jam for the family; volunteered long hours with the United Church Women (butter tarts a specialty); and boiled kettles of corn for community roasts.
Jean Thompson grew up on a farm in Bruce County during the Great Depression. When she was 5, her appendix burst and a doctor performed the life-saving operation on the dining room table. By the age of 9 she had learned to drive the tractor, and knew she wanted off the farm. While her older sister, Olive, went to teachers' college, Jean became a registered nurse – a skill that proved useful for raising six kids. In Mount Albert, we lived near a level railway crossing and whenever the air was pierced with the sound of a crash, she'd run out with old sheets, scissors and dressings to help victims before the ambulance came.
She was an active member of the United Church, singing in the choir and helping with bake sales or funeral wakes. In 1983, the town of East Gwillimbury, of which Mount Albert is part, named her Citizen of the Year.
When Dad died in 2001, we weren't sure how Mom would make out; soon after, she surprised us by by marrying another veterinarian, Bill Brack. For seven years they wintered in Florida, spent summers at Bill's cottage in Dorset, Ont., and took cruises to Europe or Alaska.
It was at Bill's funeral in April, 2009, that I put Mom through labour a second time. After the service, I told her I had been sexually abused as a young boy by my father's best friend – the local doctor, Scout master and church elder. I remember her eyes filling with tears, her head shaking. Six months later, she phoned me and said: "I've been thinking about this … Is it okay for me to call the police?"
She did (I couldn't – sexual assault victims are often petrified of male authority), igniting a probe that ended with a 2013 criminal trial. Mom, in her mid-80s, stood up to a community that didn't seem to want to hear the story. Her testimony drew gasps when she said that if my Dad had known about the abuse, then on one of his fall trips up north with his friend, "I'm pretty sure there would have been a hunting accident and only one of them would have walked out of the woods." Eleven men came forward to press charges, four testified, and the perpetrator, then in his 90s, was convicted on four counts of indecent assault.
My mama bear had protected her own. Having been heard in court, the little boy in me no longer carried the shame and blame for what he had survived. Reborn at 56.
When Aunt Olive died in 2014, life became more difficult for Mom. After the trial, she no longer felt at home where she had lived for six decades. She moved to a seniors' complex in Newmarket, Ont., where she made new friends. She loved it there and died peacefully in her bed.
Will Willitts is Jean's son.