My father’s obituary

James Gillis Johan­neson passed away Jan­u­ary 4^th, 2017, in Ste. Rose du Lac. He was 70 years old.

Jim (“JJ” to his stu­dents and friends, “Jim­my Dan­ger” to his sons-in-law—ask them why!) was born in 1946 in Win­nipego­sis, MB, to George and Jeanne (née Gilliam) Johan­neson. He mar­ried There­sa Hrushowy in 1970, and they had three chil­dren: Patrick, Nico­la, and Susan.

In his late teens Jim worked up north, in Hay Riv­er, NWT. When he returned south he took teacher train­ing. He taught Indus­tri­al Arts (ie, shop) and Com­put­er Sci­ence class­es at Ste. Rose Col­le­giate Insti­tute (lat­er Ste. Rose School) for over 25 years, and then, lat­er, taught shop in Lac Bro­chet, MB. He was a well-loved teacher, the favourite of many stu­dents. He had an approach­able, down-to-earth man­ner with every­one, stu­dents and fel­low teach­ers alike.

In addi­tion to being a shop teacher, he was a car­pen­ter and all-around handy­man. If some­thing need­ed fixing—plumbing, elec­tri­cal, insu­la­tion, you name it—he could gen­er­al­ly fix it. He under­took sev­er­al major ren­o­va­tion projects at home, and also did a lot of work at his kids’ hous­es. (Ask Nico­la about the bath­room mir­ror, or Patrick about the sid­ing and deck.)

Jim served on the Man­i­to­ba Teach­ers’ Soci­ety exec­u­tive for years. He was also a ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teer with West­man Media, cre­at­ing tons of con­tent for the local Access TV channel.

He loved to read, and the house in Ste. Rose was full of book­shelves over­flow­ing with sci­ence-fic­tion and war nov­els. He enjoyed camp­ing, and in sum­mer 1981 some of the extend­ed fam­i­ly made a month-long con­voy trip across west­ern Cana­da to White­horse, Yukon.

Jim loved kids. He would often go for walks with his chil­dren and (lat­er) grand­chil­dren, paus­ing to check the lev­el of the riv­er or teach them to skip stones at the beach.

In the last part of his life, Jim was afflict­ed with demen­tia, and he lived the last six years in the Dr. Gen­dreau Per­son­al Care Home.

Jim is sur­vived by his wife Ter­ry; their chil­dren Patrick (Kath­leen Kalberg), Nico­la (Joël Par­ent), and Susan (Jeff Walden); grand­chil­dren Julian, Isaac, Cedric, and Genevieve; broth­ers Bri­an (“Oscar” to all), George (Bren­da), and Bill (Bon­ny); and his uncle Bill and aunt Phyl­lis Johan­neson. He is pre­de­ceased by his par­ents George Sr. and Jeanne Johan­neson, and his par­ents-in-law Nicholas and Regi­na Hrushowy.

Memo­r­i­al dona­tions may be made to:

• Cana­di­an Alzheimer Society
• Cana­di­an Food­grains Bank
• Dr. Gen­dreau PCH in Ste. Rose – Box 60, Ste. Rose, MB  R0L 1S0

A very spe­cial “thank you” to all the ded­i­cat­ed staff work­ing at the Gen­dreau Home; thanks to you, we nev­er had to wor­ry about Jim’s well-being.