Obituary for Patricia Noreen O'Halloran (Halleran)
Patricia (Pat) Noreen O’Halloran (nee: Halloran; married: Green) BA: PoliSci, ARCT
It is with sadness we advise that on October 9th, 2021 Patricia Noreen O’Halloran passed very peacefully in her sleep.
Patricia was a very special and gifted person and made the world a much better place for many people. Pat started very young learning to read music and play the piano, often practicing up to three hours a day when she was young. She loved to play and sing and she played with dance bands in high school and often she would accompany herself singing to friends and family at gatherings.
Pat also played the Cello and the Pipe Organ and was the United Church organist and Choir Director in Nelson for many years in the 1950s and early 1960’s as well as a resident piano teacher. She also worked an office job at the same time. Always busy, always working hard for her loved ones.
Later, when Pat moved with husband Robert and her two daughters Vera and Alida to Edmonton, she continued to teach piano while working as an executive secretary to a Catholic Home for young women.
In 1970, recently divorced, Pat moved with her daughters to Wetaskiwin where she began a long and interesting and varied career that started with her accepting the Church Organist and Choir Director at the local United Church. In addition to this work she taught several piano students a week and began to attend the University of Alberta to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. Politics was a love she was at least as if not more enamoured with than music.
Pat O’Halloran was one unstoppable political animal. A hard-core liberal in the Alberta bible-belt of Conservatives, she fought hard for all the candidates she helped choose, manage and run. Pat was at one time the Leader of the Liberal Party (Alberta) during Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s tenure as PM and she loved it. She worked very, very hard at it. Patricia also once ran as a provincial candidate for the Liberal Party and while rarely ever anyone won in Alberta for the Liberals at that time, she put on a great campaign.
Patricia was also a fierce fighter and proud mentor of youth, focusing her particular attention primarily on grooming up-and-coming Liberal youth. Many young people loved and admired her and sought her advice and wise counsel. She was brilliant at reading a room and recalling names and making everyone from the volunteer licking envelopes, to the Prime Minister, feel important and valued. She had a gift.
During the same brief 8-year period Pat was in Wetaskiwin, she was successful at landing the role of Managing Editor of the Wetaskiwin News-Advertiser. Mom ran the paper, successfully increasing readership, subscriptions and advertising revenue significantly during her several years there. Not to mention making it a much more interesting read.
In addition, Pat sat on the Board of the Wetaskiwin Chamber of Commerce; the Committee to establish a Native Friendship Centre, and numerous other community initiatives helping to move the small city into the future. She directed and produced a large fundraising dinner called “Ye Olde English Christmas” during her time there, that sold out. Many members of her choir and friends in the community performed in it and her best friend Rosalind Grant made and painted the sets. It was a very memorable event for the community and an amazing event to pull off.
Always a fierce feminist, Patricia’s asked “Why Not” in the International Year of the Woman, and every year before and after, and was a founding member of the “pantsuit generation”. Pat firmly believed that every mother with daughters (or children for that matter) have a role to show up politically, if only to vote for those who fight for equality. Patricia was a very open-minded, loving person who understood differences, and if she didn’t she fought for their right to coexist peacefully regardless.
We would be hard-pressed to find someone who works as hard as Pat did. She did work tirelessly and when not working was sitting with friends talking about the state of the world and how strategically to make it better. Even in her social time her mind was aflutter with thoughts of how to progress the agenda.
In the late 1970’s with both daughters having left home, Patricia returned to Edmonton where she worked for many years with the Federal Government and the Catholic Health Association and continue to work hard for the Liberal Party of Canada and Alberta. During these years, treasured grandchildren were born.
In about 1999 or 2000, Patricia moved back to Victoria during her last job, a political appointment, working for the Canadian Veterans Affairs Appeal Board. As a board member, Pat read and listened to cases where vets had applied for additional compensation and been initially declined. Mom and her colleagues travelled Canada-wide to hear from these vets many of whom had been overlooked for hearing loss, PTSD, bad knees or back, asbestosis, etc. This was a challenging and difficult career, but Mom excelled at the detailed nature of the work and she loved the reward of finding a just case to overturn a decision that had left a serviceperson without compensation.
Still young and full of energy, Pat retired at the advanced age of about 70 years old and lived the following decade or so in Victoria getting to know the community there and as always was busy and of service.
Pat became President of Newcomer’s in Victoria right away for a year when she moved there as a way of getting to know people and helping them get to know each other. She was also President of her Strata Council, a thankless but important job. She became a regular member of a book club, a play-reading club, a writer’s group, and a bi-weekly exercise group. She lived next to the seawall on Dallas Road and walked regularly inspired by nature’s beauty. She even dabbled in painting at that time and the number of things she was interested in and willing to dive into were admirable.
Patricia also regularly attended the theatre and the opera and one of the most important moments in her life was when she found her beautiful son and family of Richard Margison who she had to give up for adoption as a very young woman.
Patricia was thrilled when she found Richard who much to her gratitude, agreed to meet her. They became fast family and friends and she went on to have many very fine, fun and enriching experiences with Richard and his whole family who she dearly loved and who loved her.
Richard’s family took Patricia to his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and also to La Scala in Italy when he was there. She loved the travel with Richard, his lovely wife Valerie and Lauren, all of whom she adored. She also was very openly welcomed into Richard’s extended family by his lovely parent’s Dorothy and Gilbert Margison and Valerie’s Parents Rose and Bill Kuinka. The love of this new, loving and accepting family was so important and special to Patricia and she gained another daughter as well in Richard’s lovely sister Jennifer and her husband Jim.
One of the biggest memories we will all love and share about Patricia was her incredible sharp wit and sense of humour. Her laugh was infectious, as was her music. When Pat used to sit and play, family and friends would gather round and all become at once the audience and the back-up choir.
Patricia was very good at home economics and creative as well. She used to sew her own, her children’s clothes and some of husband’s clothes when the family was young. She was very good at it, and did it all on the old treadle Singer until she finally got a newer one. She also made beautiful and elaborate costumes the children at Halloween and also for herself for parties. Pat was also an exceptional cook and ran a gourmet club with friends in Edmonton for many years in the 1980s and early 1990’s.
Patricia was very interested in history and in her own family genealogy in particular. For years and years long before the invention of ancestry.ca, etc., Pat gathered family historical photos, memories, and exhibits to carefully put together an interesting and comprehensive family tree. It was her legacy and a gift she has left us to continue for her.
Most of all, Pat loved her family: Her parents and grandparents; her children and her grandchildren and great grandchild; her brothers and their children and grandchildren, her cousins; aunts; uncles; All of them were very important to Pat and she believed every one of them to be special.
Pat was the best of friends: True to her word, fiercely loyal, able to keep a secret. Private thoughts and feelings were held sacred. Pat, the world will never be the same without you: Your voice, your song, and your laughter will continue to light us up in your memory.
____________________________________________________________
Daughter of Cecil Calvin (CC) (Mickey) Halleran and Noreen M. Halleran (nee Sullivan) Patricia had two brothers, Terrence (Terry) and Michael. Michael predeceased Patricia by several years and her young brother Terry, whom she adored, passed just a few months after Patricia. Pat loved all of her family and especially her children and her grandchildren and great-grandchild very much.
Patricia is pre-deceased by her parents and brothers, and her eldest daughter Vera Eileen Green, and is survived by son Richard Margison (Valerie Kuinka); daughter Katrine Ireland; Grandchildren: Dinah Sophia Weatherall; Robert Bryan Shaw; Lauren Margison; Matheson Douglas George; and great-grandson Ryder MacKenzie Weatherall as well as cousins and in-laws.
Donations in lieu of flowers can be made in Mom's honour to:
The Royal Canadian Legion #74: https://www.facebook.com/KasloLegion/
or to:
Mark's Anglican Church in Kaslo:
https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMHC59_St_Marks_Anglican_Church_Kaslo_BC
Thank you,
With Love,
The family
It is with sadness we advise that on October 9th, 2021 Patricia Noreen O’Halloran passed very peacefully in her sleep.
Patricia was a very special and gifted person and made the world a much better place for many people. Pat started very young learning to read music and play the piano, often practicing up to three hours a day when she was young. She loved to play and sing and she played with dance bands in high school and often she would accompany herself singing to friends and family at gatherings.
Pat also played the Cello and the Pipe Organ and was the United Church organist and Choir Director in Nelson for many years in the 1950s and early 1960’s as well as a resident piano teacher. She also worked an office job at the same time. Always busy, always working hard for her loved ones.
Later, when Pat moved with husband Robert and her two daughters Vera and Alida to Edmonton, she continued to teach piano while working as an executive secretary to a Catholic Home for young women.
In 1970, recently divorced, Pat moved with her daughters to Wetaskiwin where she began a long and interesting and varied career that started with her accepting the Church Organist and Choir Director at the local United Church. In addition to this work she taught several piano students a week and began to attend the University of Alberta to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. Politics was a love she was at least as if not more enamoured with than music.
Pat O’Halloran was one unstoppable political animal. A hard-core liberal in the Alberta bible-belt of Conservatives, she fought hard for all the candidates she helped choose, manage and run. Pat was at one time the Leader of the Liberal Party (Alberta) during Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s tenure as PM and she loved it. She worked very, very hard at it. Patricia also once ran as a provincial candidate for the Liberal Party and while rarely ever anyone won in Alberta for the Liberals at that time, she put on a great campaign.
Patricia was also a fierce fighter and proud mentor of youth, focusing her particular attention primarily on grooming up-and-coming Liberal youth. Many young people loved and admired her and sought her advice and wise counsel. She was brilliant at reading a room and recalling names and making everyone from the volunteer licking envelopes, to the Prime Minister, feel important and valued. She had a gift.
During the same brief 8-year period Pat was in Wetaskiwin, she was successful at landing the role of Managing Editor of the Wetaskiwin News-Advertiser. Mom ran the paper, successfully increasing readership, subscriptions and advertising revenue significantly during her several years there. Not to mention making it a much more interesting read.
In addition, Pat sat on the Board of the Wetaskiwin Chamber of Commerce; the Committee to establish a Native Friendship Centre, and numerous other community initiatives helping to move the small city into the future. She directed and produced a large fundraising dinner called “Ye Olde English Christmas” during her time there, that sold out. Many members of her choir and friends in the community performed in it and her best friend Rosalind Grant made and painted the sets. It was a very memorable event for the community and an amazing event to pull off.
Always a fierce feminist, Patricia’s asked “Why Not” in the International Year of the Woman, and every year before and after, and was a founding member of the “pantsuit generation”. Pat firmly believed that every mother with daughters (or children for that matter) have a role to show up politically, if only to vote for those who fight for equality. Patricia was a very open-minded, loving person who understood differences, and if she didn’t she fought for their right to coexist peacefully regardless.
We would be hard-pressed to find someone who works as hard as Pat did. She did work tirelessly and when not working was sitting with friends talking about the state of the world and how strategically to make it better. Even in her social time her mind was aflutter with thoughts of how to progress the agenda.
In the late 1970’s with both daughters having left home, Patricia returned to Edmonton where she worked for many years with the Federal Government and the Catholic Health Association and continue to work hard for the Liberal Party of Canada and Alberta. During these years, treasured grandchildren were born.
In about 1999 or 2000, Patricia moved back to Victoria during her last job, a political appointment, working for the Canadian Veterans Affairs Appeal Board. As a board member, Pat read and listened to cases where vets had applied for additional compensation and been initially declined. Mom and her colleagues travelled Canada-wide to hear from these vets many of whom had been overlooked for hearing loss, PTSD, bad knees or back, asbestosis, etc. This was a challenging and difficult career, but Mom excelled at the detailed nature of the work and she loved the reward of finding a just case to overturn a decision that had left a serviceperson without compensation.
Still young and full of energy, Pat retired at the advanced age of about 70 years old and lived the following decade or so in Victoria getting to know the community there and as always was busy and of service.
Pat became President of Newcomer’s in Victoria right away for a year when she moved there as a way of getting to know people and helping them get to know each other. She was also President of her Strata Council, a thankless but important job. She became a regular member of a book club, a play-reading club, a writer’s group, and a bi-weekly exercise group. She lived next to the seawall on Dallas Road and walked regularly inspired by nature’s beauty. She even dabbled in painting at that time and the number of things she was interested in and willing to dive into were admirable.
Patricia also regularly attended the theatre and the opera and one of the most important moments in her life was when she found her beautiful son and family of Richard Margison who she had to give up for adoption as a very young woman.
Patricia was thrilled when she found Richard who much to her gratitude, agreed to meet her. They became fast family and friends and she went on to have many very fine, fun and enriching experiences with Richard and his whole family who she dearly loved and who loved her.
Richard’s family took Patricia to his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and also to La Scala in Italy when he was there. She loved the travel with Richard, his lovely wife Valerie and Lauren, all of whom she adored. She also was very openly welcomed into Richard’s extended family by his lovely parent’s Dorothy and Gilbert Margison and Valerie’s Parents Rose and Bill Kuinka. The love of this new, loving and accepting family was so important and special to Patricia and she gained another daughter as well in Richard’s lovely sister Jennifer and her husband Jim.
One of the biggest memories we will all love and share about Patricia was her incredible sharp wit and sense of humour. Her laugh was infectious, as was her music. When Pat used to sit and play, family and friends would gather round and all become at once the audience and the back-up choir.
Patricia was very good at home economics and creative as well. She used to sew her own, her children’s clothes and some of husband’s clothes when the family was young. She was very good at it, and did it all on the old treadle Singer until she finally got a newer one. She also made beautiful and elaborate costumes the children at Halloween and also for herself for parties. Pat was also an exceptional cook and ran a gourmet club with friends in Edmonton for many years in the 1980s and early 1990’s.
Patricia was very interested in history and in her own family genealogy in particular. For years and years long before the invention of ancestry.ca, etc., Pat gathered family historical photos, memories, and exhibits to carefully put together an interesting and comprehensive family tree. It was her legacy and a gift she has left us to continue for her.
Most of all, Pat loved her family: Her parents and grandparents; her children and her grandchildren and great grandchild; her brothers and their children and grandchildren, her cousins; aunts; uncles; All of them were very important to Pat and she believed every one of them to be special.
Pat was the best of friends: True to her word, fiercely loyal, able to keep a secret. Private thoughts and feelings were held sacred. Pat, the world will never be the same without you: Your voice, your song, and your laughter will continue to light us up in your memory.
____________________________________________________________
Daughter of Cecil Calvin (CC) (Mickey) Halleran and Noreen M. Halleran (nee Sullivan) Patricia had two brothers, Terrence (Terry) and Michael. Michael predeceased Patricia by several years and her young brother Terry, whom she adored, passed just a few months after Patricia. Pat loved all of her family and especially her children and her grandchildren and great-grandchild very much.
Patricia is pre-deceased by her parents and brothers, and her eldest daughter Vera Eileen Green, and is survived by son Richard Margison (Valerie Kuinka); daughter Katrine Ireland; Grandchildren: Dinah Sophia Weatherall; Robert Bryan Shaw; Lauren Margison; Matheson Douglas George; and great-grandson Ryder MacKenzie Weatherall as well as cousins and in-laws.
Donations in lieu of flowers can be made in Mom's honour to:
The Royal Canadian Legion #74: https://www.facebook.com/KasloLegion/
or to:
Mark's Anglican Church in Kaslo:
https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMHC59_St_Marks_Anglican_Church_Kaslo_BC
Thank you,
With Love,
The family