Ann O'Connor

Ann Patricia O’Connor (née Balfe) passed away peacefully on Sunday, January 12, 2025, surrounded by many of her children and grandchildren. She was predeceased by her loyal husband, James Noel O’Connor, in 2019. Ann leaves behind her children, Liam (Molly), Brendan (Bernadita), Dermot (Barbara), Sioban (Earl), and Naoibh (Oliver), as well as grandchildren Quinn/Teagan, Midori and Caitrin/Liam and Darren/Isabella and Jack/Caoime and Cillian. Ann’s roots were tied to a Maugherow farm in Sligo on the northwest coast of Ireland. There, her wise Granny (Mary) Leydon read her books by Guy de Maupassant and others, preparing her to explore and conquer the world.

Born on August 17, 1932, in London, Ann was raised in England’s capital until she turned eight. Her beloved father, James Balfe, had moved there from Ireland for work at the London Evening News as a production manager. Ann would survive the bombing blitz of London in 1940 but was traumatized by the 1939 death of her mother, Mary, from breast cancer when Ann was only seven. Ann would never recover from her mother’s passing. Later, due to World War II and the “ Blitzkrieg”, she and her cherished siblings (Moya and Desmond), like many children, were forced out of the city to live in the countryside, sometimes with families that did not want them. This was doubly unpleasant because the unwelcoming family, with which they were placed, ran a funeral home from their residence. Ann’s father was eventually able to take the children back to their grandmother in Sligo. There, they would spend two wonderful years by the wild Atlantic, under rocky Benbulben, and amongst the glorious greenery of romantic Yeats Country, “The Land of Heart’s Desire.” When their father was able, he reunited the family back to London when the war ended. After obtaining a nursing degree from Charing Cross Hospital, Ann’s heart pulled her back to Ireland where she spent three years as a registered nurse in Sligo Hospital.

But the adventure was not over! Though delayed by six months, due to a lonely stint in a sanitorium in Sligo recovering from tuberculosis, Ann eventually ventured across the sea to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in 1960. There, thanks to sponsors, Auntie Eileen, a nurse, and Uncle Teddy, an eye doctor, she would meet her future Irish husband, James Noel. Eileen would become the maternal grandmother Ann’s children never had. Still, before settling in with James for fifty-six years, Ann nursed and had a few years of fun. She caught a marlin in the Gulf of Mexico, rode a gondola up Sulphur Mountain in Banff, Alberta, and, at a nursing party, actor William Holden asked her to dance. Holden would later unsuccessfully attempt to forget that dance (good luck with that, buddy) by getting involved with Audrey Hepburn and, later, Stephanie Powers. He should have stuck with Ann as she, too, was an actress, taking up many prominent roles in the local church’s “Little Theatre” ensemble.

In 1963, James was transferred with Trans Canada airlines (now Air Canada) to Toronto and the couple were married at St. Basil’s the same year. The first two boys soon followed before 1967 saw a move to Calgary and three more children. It was here where things really got rocking and the true exploring and conquering began.

Ann did everything and exposed her children to everything. On the short list, there was piano, ballet, soccer, art classes, foreign films, after-school programs, paper routes, museums, basketball, summer camps, languages, scouts, stamp collecting, camping, canoeing, cycling, bowling, pottery, macramé, curling, archery, and skiing. She saved all her pennies and baby bonus money to ensure her daughters would have braces on their teeth. Ann started the very first book club in the world and it lasted four decades. She volunteered with Birthright International and helped single women struggling with pregnancy. One abandoned Caribbean newcomer came and lived with us until her child was born. Ann started a Rosary Group for women once a month for coffee and prayer in her living room. She welcomed a stranger, a young woman nearly dying from anorexia nervosa, into our home for months until she recovered. In the late 1980s, with what was then known as AIDS Calgary, Ann sat and held the hands of HIV-positive young men in hospital as they died so that they would not be alone.

Ann took, often dragging, her five children to Church every Saturday night or Sunday morning, many times walking through blizzards and hailstorms. Her husband’s airline employee passes allowed her to take, or send, her children around the world, often with little money, even if it meant sleeping on airport benches or tropical beaches. We are confident we had the only guinea pigs in Canada named Offenbach and Schubert. We also had frogs (Elvis and Priscilla), dogs (Patrick and Cuchulainn), snakes, hamsters, rabbits and fish (with unusually short life expectancies). We had a basset hound for a week who Ann re-named from Marvin to Voltaire until she made us rehome him (found him a happy spot!) because we could not wash the basset hound smell off the basset hound. Ann had the courage to learn to play golf and drive a car in her 40s. Later in life, she travelled twice to nurse tiny, sick babies in Mother Teresa’s Orphanage in Haiti for several weeks.

Ann was refined, elegant, glamorous, had a heart of gold, and loved to wear gorgeous clothes, shoes and jewelry. She loved poetry, fruit & nut chocolate bars, fiction, red wine, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Benny Goodman, any movie with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase as a couple, hot cross buns at Easter, the Two Ronnie's, Theatre Calgary, ginger beef, hard candy, the Royal Family, Elvis’s Puppet on a String, tea with bread and marmalade, Michael Caine, coffee and strudel at Edelweiss, Masterpiece Theatre, Doctor in the House, and licorice all-sorts. She was positively frightened of cats and hated any watered-down version of milk, as well as jeans, baseball caps, cold custard, poor grammar and elbows on tables.

She made THE best mincemeat tarts, Christmas cake, scones, rock buns, and raisin butter tarts. That was until she started to forget to put raisins in the butter tarts. Then, tragically, she started to forget other little things, until we began to sadly and painfully lose her over the course of twelve difficult years. So, hug your mother, and tell her you love her, before this happens to you. Then, in lieu of flowers, a donation to an Alzheimer’s Society, a breast cancer charity, or to the Colonel Belcher Retirement Residence would be appreciated. All the employees on every unit were tremendous, but her final years were blessed by the wonderful care of the kind staff working on the Churchill Unit.

A Funeral Mass will take place at Corpus Christi Catholic Church (404 Northmount Place NW) on Friday, January 24, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. A reception will follow shortly after at the Parish Hall following the burial. The mass will be livestreamed and recorded for those unable to attend in person. Photos, memories and condolences may be shared with Ann’s family here.

 Ann’s tombstone should simply read: “She loved her children.”

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