Article by Fr. Jim Mason, C.Ss.R.
On July 31st, 2011 we Redemptorists lost one of our close associates and a dear friend when Yvonne Meehan died. Yvonne is known to many of us as the wife of Dr. Joe Meehan, as sister-in-law of Father Matt Meehan, as mother of 6 children and as a parishioner of Our Lady of the Assumption in her family’s early years. In the eighties and there after she readily and happily gave of her professional paediatric expertise in the treating and caring for many a Redemptorist’s sore and aging feet.
Yvonne slipped in and out of some of our lives in other ways also. She and Dr. Joe were part of the 70’s crowd that brought to Assumption a new life at the school, at the Sunday Masses and in the parish’s social activities that helped weld the community together during the changing times during and after Vatican II. She and Dr. Joe were enthusiastic supporters of the young people of Assumption, the so called “Company of Forty” group. She and Dr. Joe jumped at the chance to enrol their children in the first French immersion program in Blessed Sacrament School. She and Dr. Joe opened their home for an annual supper gathering of Redemptorists from the Toronto area. In June, 2010 I gave Freda, our Provincial secretary, a phone number to call that was intended to invite Margaret & Marie Meehan to come for their annual pick of some fresh rhubarb on Saturday next at 9. Freda called and left a voicemail to that effect. Next day at 9AM Yvonne drove up in her little car and said she was delighted with my invitation and set about pulling her own stalks! Not knowing of the mix up I told her that besides all her other great talents she obviously enjoyed a bit of E.S. P. It was the last time we talked.
Yvonne was a pleasant, positive and very caring woman. She was a delight to engage in conversation about the closeness of the older Catholic community of Toronto, about her times in nursing school at St. Mike’s, of old friends from Assumption and the growth in her family. She had a vibrant and living faith and had that unique ability of guiding one softly while walking with you. She possessed that kind of simplicity and humility that made one feel completely at home in her presence. Her conversations were filled with that warm kind of deprecating humour that easily conversed about the vagaries of life in the modern world, especially of those in family. We will miss her visits and express our sympathy to all in her family.
