Jean Adeline Donesky

Jean Alice Adeline (Finlayson) Donesky was born in Watson, Saskatchewan on August 26, 1928. She was a prairie girl. She absolutely loved the wide open and would comment on this every time we entered that space on family visits to Saskatchewan. But she was solidly there and grounded wherever she landed: during our father’s early church assignments in Saskatchewan; representing the Canadian SDA church at the Paris Youth Congress along with India, arriving in India with two toddlers, giving birth to a third while there, and bringing her youngest home from India the long way, that is, returning to North America by ship and overland with her youngest in her tummy, arriving in Saskatchewan just in time to give birth; supporting our father through further studies at Andrews University, and raising four children while supporting dad’s ministry along with her own tireless service to church and community.

 Her father was a farmer, her mother a school teacher. She had three brothers and worked alongside them (she was tougher by far than she ever appeared). As she was growing up, both sets of grandparents lived within 4-5 miles; she had cousins in abundance within easy distances. And she was very much an active part of her church community early on. Both of her parents were Adventists (among the earliest in Canada). Jean, in particular, was devout. Precociously so. Her brothers would tease her remorselessly about this (their good-natured testimony). But she was steadfast, strictly honouring the Sabbath; absorbing her Sabbath school lessons; temperate, chaste, faithful in her tithing as well as her devotions. As a farmer’s family it seemed natural that some meat would be served within church guidelines, and it was. Jean stopped eating meat at about seven years of age, to some consternation, having taken her advisement from what she learned in church. 

To her credit, she never paraded her convictions or challenged others on theirs. She lived simply, quietly, and resolutely. Hers was a life of profound love and endless generosity which extended well beyond her immediate family, and so was a remarkable, positive, example to so many. She was deeply loved and will be deeply missed. 

May she now rest in peace.