Jacqueline Saville passed away peacefully on August 25, 2024, with her daughters by her side. She was 84 years old. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba in 1939, Jacqueline spent her first years in Dryden, Ontario. Although she moved to Winnipeg with her mother and brother as a young child, Northwestern Ontario was always home. As a child, she traveled by train from Winnipeg to Dryden on every holiday. She made the trip alone from age 10. At age 15, when she was “old enough to cause problems if they didn’t let her go”, she packed a cardboard box, a suitcase, and her bike, and came back to Dryden. She lived with her grandparents James and Jesse Wilson, and later with
her father and stepmother, Alex and Effie Wilson. She sold her bike to buy a canoe.
Jacqueline was fiercely independent. Like her grandmother, she also had a temper, and it was kindled whenever someone tried to hold her back. Not everyone saw it. Good manners mattered. It would simmer, under the surface, and vanish when she found a path forward. Jacqueline became an avid reader. She learned about machines from her grandfather over hours watching him work metal on his lathe. She was the only girl in her physics class in high school. She also took home economics but hated it. She shared her father’s interest in architecture and structural design. Whenever she said or did something clever, her father would say “Good boy”. He meant it as praise, but the implication never left her. When she was told that after high school she could become a nurse, a teacher, or a secretary, she said no. As a teenager, she loved to sit on the rocks by the Wabigoon River and read. Alvin Saville passed by in his speedboat, back and forth for weeks, hoping for her attention. Jacqueline married him at 19. In the years that followed, she was happiest when out adventuring with Alvin. They led a United Church youth group called Hi-C, and a highlight was the group canoe trips to
Trap Lake. Jacqueline and Alvin explored bush trails by snowmachine and dune buggy, later ATV, often trying to reach a lake they had never been to. They were among the first to take snow machines into White Otter Castle in the 1960s when snow machines were new and needed constant repair on the way. They spent at least a thousand beautiful days fishing and exploring together. She loved surprises, Christmas, new tech, hot dogs over the fire. She loved to be on the road with Alvin. Leaving on a road trip at dawn was joy, and they drove countless miles across the country. It was freedom.
A few years after her father retired, Jacqueline took over his printing company, becoming president of Alex Wilson Coldstream Ltd and publisher of the Dryden Observer. She became the first woman member and first woman president of the Dryden Rotary Club. She and Alvin hosted exchange students from around the world through Rotary. She loved having young people around. She served on the district school board and with other organizations to improve life in Dryden. Through those years, Jacqueline did her best to hide her natural shyness. She was never very comfortable in groups, but always wanted to be useful. She was also easily bored. In between other things she always found a project – designing a new garden, a pond
with a modified pump, a new trail on their property, or a renovation to the house. In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, she fought relentlessly to keep her company and the newspaper alive against a turning tide of paper being abandoned and news moving online. Her heart ached for the jobs lost.
Jacqueline lost her heart when Alvin died. In 2009 she left the house they had built and moved to Perth, Ontario to be closer to a daughter and grandchildren. She kept busy with her grandchildren. She traveled. She continued with projects in the garden and in her new house. As she got older, she turned her creativity into intricate quilts, experimenting with patterns in the stitching that held them together. Most of these she donated to charities serving children. She took many trips back to Dryden, on her own, driving the 1000 miles each way. She loved the freedom, and she loved going home.
Jacqueline developed dementia in her late 70s. She fought tenaciously against her disease, and she held furiously to her independence. She was helped in a thousand small, vital ways by family, friends, and strangers, to whom we are forever grateful. There are too many to mention, but they include people on tech support lines worldwide, her hairdresser, Brenda, who fixed her hair after she accidentally dyed it purple, and Donna, her faithful housekeeper and companion. Donna called her a firecracker. Jacqueline hated being told to take her pills, to eat something healthy, to use her walker. She fired Donna regularly. Donna would take a day or two off, then
come back to work and continue as usual. Jacqueline moved from her house to an apartment last year. She talked almost daily about going home. She meant the house she had built with Alvin and the lakes and trails of Northwestern Ontario. When at last she had to move to a memory care unit, they said she would adjust. She said no. After less than three weeks, she entered the hospital. A short time later she passed away. In the hospital, she said she wanted to be a little yellow bird and fly away.
She has now flown home.
Jacqueline was predeceased by her husband, Alvin Saville; daughter, Margaret Saville; son-in-law Terry Spicer; father, Alexander Wilson; stepmother, Effie Wilson (nee McKeachnie); mother, Gladys Wilson (nee Lemon) and brother, Ross Wilson. She is survived by her daughters, Catherine Spicer and Barbara Szijarto (Rick); grandchildren Drew Spicer (Chris Broman) and David Spicer (Courtney), Claire Paquette, Sydney and Gillian Szijarto, and her two great- grandchildren, Leith Broman and Neave Spicer.
Following Jacqueline’s wishes, cremation has taken place. A gathering of family will be held at a future time.
For those wishing to express sympathy, the family would appreciate donations to DECO, princesscourtdeco@gmail.com; Box 953, Dryden, ON, P8N 3E3.
