On November 30, 2015, Jessie Sadler passed away peacefully at Columbia View Lodge in Trail, where she had lived for the past 3 years. She was born Jessie Symington Kellie on June 5, 1923, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the youngest of 11. At 14 she left school and became apprenticed to an exclusive dressmaker, and soon thereafter began attending night classes in fashion illustration at the Edinburgh College of Art. She dreamt of moving to Paris and building a career in the fashion industry, but the year was 1939, and the war sent her life along an entirely different path. Upon turning 18 in 1941, she joined the Women’s Royal Air Force, and spent the next four years working on aircraft engines. During this time she met a young Canadian soldier named Robert (Red) Sadler, and they kept in touch thereafter. In 1947 she, with her mother Margaret and brother George, emigrated to Canada to join sisters Rita, who had married Dave MacDonald of Nelson, and Jean, married to Harry Layte. While she was working at a dress shop in Nelson she and Robert Sadler met again, and they married in 1948 and moved to Revelstoke, where he was working at that time, and where they had many good friends. In 1956, they moved with daughter Dianne to South Slocan to be nearer Jessie’s family, and Red went to work for West Kootenay Power and Light, retiring in 1984. In 2000 they moved to Nelson, where Red died the following year; Jessie remained in Nelson until 2012, when she moved into Columbia View Lodge after a period of illness. She resisted the move at first, but relented when she found that she would be able to visit the hairdresser there weekly.
She leaves behind daughter Dianne and son-in-law Les Laronde, of Galiano Island, B.C.; granddaughter Genevieve and husband Ryan Stirling, and great-grandson James Wyndham Stirling; cousin Margaret Dalziell of Edinburgh, and a number of great nieces and nephews in Scotland. We were proud of her character and spirit, and will miss her greatly.
Thanks to Dr. McCoid and to all the staff at Columbia View, who provided mom with a space in which she felt safe, yet able to exercise a bit of independence; and to her friend Colleen Jmaeff, who visited her regularly, brought her chocolates and other necessities, and provided both support to mom and regular news updates to her family when they could not be there.
By Jessie’s request there will be no funeral. Anyone wishing to do so may make a donation in her memory to either Kootenay Lake General Hospital, or to Columbia View Lodge for the Resident’s Recreation Department.