GONEAU (Née WAGNER), Elizabeth (Beth)

Nope. I used your draft which was excellent and corrected a few details. Don’t be modest.

Elizabeth (Beth) Kathryn or Catherine (nee Wagner) Goneau
passed away on November 10, 2019 in her 95th year, at the Perley & Rideau Veteran’s Health Centre in Ottawa where she had resided for the past 2 years after a fall. Beth was born in Spokane, Washington on December 15, 1923 to William (Bill) and Mamie Belvina(nee Bakken) Wagner. Horace Edward Goneau, of Bathurst NB, her husband of 41 years predeceased her, passing away in Kingston in 1990. She was predeceased as well, by her brother Gordon Edwin (Enid) Wagner of Grand Prairie Alta. & Whitehorse, the Yukon Territory. Surviving Beth are her children, Dianna (Brian) Inkster of Kingston, Bill (Janet) of Belleville, Mira Giovenazzo of Thornhill, and Wanda (Richard Moore) of Ottawa. She is remembered by her Grandchildren, Andy Inkster, Toronto, James Inkster (Kimberley Stoker), Saskatoon, Jayme Spinks, Lunenburg, Isabella Goneau, Belleville & Ottawa, Samantha (Brandon) Sheffield, Toronto, Dylan Giovenazzo, Barrie, Marie-Eve Therrien, Gatineau, Felix Moore, Gatineau and her Great Grandchildren, Elise Inkster and Francesco (Frankie) Sheffield. Beth has been cremated, and her ashes interred in a niche with Horace at the Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston. At Beth’s request, a family dinner will be held at a later date.
The family would like to thank the staff at the Duke of Devonshire Retirement Home who cared for Beth for 8 years until her tragic collapse and the Perley Staff on Ottawa 2 East, who provided care for her. Donations can be made in her memory to an organization of your choice.

Growing up in the West during the Roaring Twenties and the Depression was her early life, and her experiences then had a tremendous impact on Beth’s way of thinking..

She became a lifelong supporter of the CCF (later the NDP) and strongly supported their policies of Universal Health Care and Social and Job Security.

An independent woman ahead of her time, she enlisted in the CWAC and served 2 years as a signals operator in Britain and Holland. Returning to Canada in 1946, she was discharged. Then, at a time when only male overseas soldiers were being given “veterans’ preference” she reluctantly enrolled at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver with bare bones financial support from Veterans’ Affairs. After 2 years at university and with 3rd year yet to finish, she married in 1948 and followed her husband, Horace to Terrace Bay, a paper mill town being carved out of the woods on the north shore of Lake Superior.
Four children later, the family moved to Elliot Lake, a booming mining town, 100 miles west of Sudbury. When the mines began to close, the family moved again, and after a brief stop in Trenton the family settled in Kingston Ontario.
Having completed 3 correspondence courses as soon as her children were in school full time and while working shifts full time in the Admissions Department in the local hospital in Elliot Lake at age 40 she returned to UBC, for the summer session in 1964 and completed her degree programme started years earlier. At the fall convocation, she was awarded in absentia her 3 years BA, a rare accomplishment for a poor woman of her generation.
After working for a brief period in the library in the research lab in Kingston, she worked for many years as a caseworker for The Kingston Frontenac Children’s Aid Society. Her church, St Mark’s Church of Barriefield was very important to her. After Horace and her mother, Mamie passed away, she became a regular volunteer at St Mary’s of the Lake in Kingston as well. Beth supported many environmental causes, and loved her bird feeders and flower gardens on a lovely treed property a few minutes east of Kingston. She also believed strongly in public libraries and public edication and supported them often. She cooked and sewed with verve, but knitting was her passion. Another passion of hers was serious music. She especially loved the opera.
She loved to travel with Horace in Canada and abroad. Widowed at age 66, Beth continued to travel extensively with friends and her grandchildren, mixing trips to China, Russia, the Panana Canal, the St Lawrence River, Norway the Caribbean and The British Isles in with several trips to Canada’s North.
Beth passed away as she had lived, quietly, without fuss, fittingly, just after breakfast on the eve of Remembrance Day supported in her final journey by the compassionate Perley & Rideau staff.

(Text written by Mira Giovenazzo and revised and corrected by Dianna K. Goneau Inkster, her daughters)

I’d like to express my thanks to the staff at the Duke of Devonshire Retirement Home because my mother, Beth really enjoyed her time there and the kind attention the staff paid her. Her time at the Duke of Devonshire ended tragically, but you all did what you could for my mother prior to that. I’m also grateful for the help and the friendship of everybody at the Perley & Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre and in Poplar Grove subdivision. Mommy wouldn’t have had as happy a life as she did without all your help. We won’t maintain and enhance our public health centre without public support. Mommy like a lot of her generation remembered what it was like before public healthcare. She believed in the social safety net and in the end, profited from it.