April 5, 2021
This sunny day in April, I wish to tell you about the lifetime of my wife Mary Roslyn (Lynn) Hilton.
Surrounded by her family, Lynn passed away peacefully at home in the early morning on April 5, 2021 after courageously battling Interstitial lung disease for 3 years.
She was 82. She was my beloved wife of 60 years. She was the mother to our son Britt (Loranne) and daughter Nadine. She was the loving Nana to Britt's children; Lindsey (Paul) and Meghan and Nadine's children; Claire, Ellen, Joel and Drew. Lynn is survived by her older sister Ruth Gottfried, sister-in-law Doreen Dean and predeceased by her parents Harold and Jesse McCutcheon.
Lynn was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario in 1938 and moved to Campbell River with her family in 1952 for her father's new job as an electrician at the start-up of Elk Falls mill.
After graduating from Carihi, Lynn also worked at the mill and then moved on to be a secretary for both St. Ann's Hospital and lawyers Caldwell & Sharpe. She then worked at the City of Campbell River for 25 years as the Assistant to the Administrator and then as Secretary to the Mayor until her retirement in 2000. She was known for being able to do any task, keeping everyone organized and getting things done quickly with her very fast hands.
Lynn loved to knit, spin, felt and weave and was always keen to learn new fibre art crafts. After retirement, we would always come home from Arizona through Pendleton, Oregon and stop at the wool mill, filling any spare space in the truck with wool.
She belonged to numerous knitting and weaving organizations and went to conferences and workshops all over BC, Alberta and Washington State. Lynn was always excited to go to the Merville Hall where she had many good friends and enjoyed volunteering at the Campbell River Art Gallery.
Many August long weekends were spent with her woven art at the Filberg Festival in Comox. Lynn was always working on new projects and patterns (usually at the same time) and could knit a pair of slippers between Campbell River and Nanaimo!
She loved to travel up and down the island and could turn a 3-hour drive to Victoria into an 8-hour experience by stopping to visit various wool and weaving shops, especially Whippletree Junction, where she sold her beautiful, felted hats. She was truly the best at fixing her friends' knitting mishaps too.
Lynn loved her garden and enjoyed growing vegetables, going on garden tours and to farmers' markets and craft fairs. She especially loved picking her blueberries and feeding them to her grandchildren when they would visit every summer. She was also passionate about her clothesline and made sure to use it all year long to hang out the bed sheets!
Lynn always enjoyed watching the eagles and wildlife that wandered into the yard, except for the time when a garter snake wandered into the house! She quickly grabbed the vacuum, sucked it up and was so thankful that Ron, her neighbour, was nearby and willing to remove it.
There were several trips to visit her cousins in the UK with Nadine, long-time friend and neighbour Norma Brooks, and myself, and a wonderful trip to New Zealand with friend Jeanelle Fischer. Over the years, there were many day trips with George and Jane Super, trips to Quadra, Denman, and Hornby, and weekends to Salt Spring and Texada Island.
Lynn was passionate about and appreciated the beauty of Campbell River and lived with our family in the Galerno and Rockland area since 1960. We always felt very fortunate to have great neighbours who were friends in a place she loved and called home.
I would very much like to thank Nadine, granddaughter Ellen and all the Island Health homecare workers for their excellent care of Lynn. To honour Lynn's memory, donations can be made to the Campbell River Art Gallery.
Lynn will be dearly missed and forever in our hearts.
-Rolly-