Obituary of Patricia De Krasinski (nee Stansfield)

May 22, 1928 – Alverstoke, England

November 28, 2023 – Calgary, Alberta

 

Patricia de Krasinski (nee Stansfield) born May 22, 1928, in Alverstoke, England, passed away on Thursday, November 28, 2023, in Calgary, AB, at the age of 95 years.

 

Patricia was born to Mr. Colonel Edmund and Rosamond Stansfield. She spent her early childhood years, including the “War Years” during World War II, living between England and India. Patricia was a graduate of Queen Mary University of London, where she received her Baccalaureate Degree in Biological Science in 1948.

 

She married Joseph S. de Krasinski on September 3, 1947, in London, England. They had four daughters, Mary, Patricia (II), Elizabeth, and Frances.

 

After her marriage, she moved with her husband to Córdoba, Argentina where Dr. de Krasinski was employed in a teaching and research position in Aeronautical Design and Mechanical Engineering studies. In Córdoba, she was employed both as a biological lab research technician, as well as a biology teacher in the Academia Argüello.

 

In 1969, the whole family moved to Calgary, AB, where her husband received a position at the University of Calgary, Mechanical Engineering Department. Throughout the ensuing years, she remained actively employed both as a real estate agent, a geological lab assistant, and a U of C lab instructor. In 1986, she also received her Electronics Technology Technician Diploma from DeVry Institute of Technology.

 

Patricia was a Girl Guide Leader, a bridge club member, as well as a passionate hiker, climber, and camper. She climbed Mt. Argentina in 1962. She was one of the earliest and first members of the Status of Women Action Committee, local Calgary chapter, where she was involved with the Irene Murdoch case. In 1980, she was nominated for the YWCA, "Woman of the Year" award. Among her many hobbies, was her love for tracking and recording wildflowers of Alberta. She was also a member of many local hiking clubs, including the Alpine Club of Canada and Skrastins Outdoor Club, as well as, other associations including the Calgary Field Naturalist Society, Calgary Pollution Control Association, Elderhostel Society, and the Birdwatching Club of Calgary.

 

Her family will always remember her for her first love, which was the Sierras of Córdoba, the Andes, and the Rocky Mountains. She loved the outdoors, especially hiking and cross-country skiing.

 

Her tireless involvement with the Status of Women Action Committee also reflected her serious commitment to the progress of achieving social democratic ideals, as considered through a feminist philosophical perspective and its values legally applied.

 

Patricia is survived by her daughter Frances de Krasinski, and her loving grandchildren, Amanda and Johan.

 

The family would like to thank all the staff at Bow-Crest Center for their care and compassion.

 

Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church (640 – 19th Avenue N.W.) on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. Tributes and a Reception will be held McInnis & Holloway (Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street N, Calgary, AB) on Sunday, June 2, 2024, at 1:00 p.m. Inurnment took place at the Canmore Cemetery on Friday, June 7, 2024 at 2:30 p.m.

 

Family and friends who are unable to attend in person are invited to join Mrs. Stanfield’s service streamed live (see link below) on the day of the service. For those who are unable to view live, a recording of the service will be posted.

 

In lieu of flowers, memorial tributes can be made in Patricia’s memory to a charity of their own choosing.

 

In living memory of Patricia Stansfield, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street North, Calgary, AB T2E 2V6, Telephone: 403-243-8200.

 

 

 

EULOGY

Patricia De Krasinski (nee Stansfield)

May 22, 1928

November 28, 2023

 

 In late summer 1979, Dorothy Groves, respected long-time member of the Calgary Council of Women, and close associate and friend of my mother, Patricia de Krasinski, dropped by to announce her intentions to nominate my mother for the YWCA’s “Woman of the Year” award. While this could have been another predictable yet pleasant afternoon tea/chat event, it was, as it turned out to be, more than what a mother and her daughter would have expected. With smiles and gestures of nods of approval, it was none other but a summer of afternoon delight and welcoming surprise. Indeed, what a significant moment this would be, and not easily forgotten, if it weren’t that I, as her daughter, would be instilled with a sense of pride to be a witness of what was this simple yet important occasion taking place in the comforts of her own parents’ home living room.

 

With this simple but important occasion played out unexpectedly, in what way did the honor of such a nomination leave my mother with considerations to think and ponder about? Did it make her look back at many other highlights or juncture points in her past and question their relevance as a common theme of events strung together to a predictable present-day trajectory point? Or, were they disparate themes that gave way to an unpredictable yet significant highlight to what would be, at this point in her life, the marking of 51 years of life?

 

Given that the nomination she received was orientated around the hundreds of volunteer hours she spent between 1974 and 1980 as an active member of the Calgary Council of Women (CCW), and later, in January of 1975, a founding member of the Status of Women Action Committee Society, one could conclude that she would have embarked on what one could describe as the beginnings of a political journey in her life. This journey would initially begin with her association as an Executive Council member of the CCW where she took on the “Immigration” file position. This file would later be important in lending her further understanding on immigrant related issues as they pertained to Matrimonial Property Law concerns, which at that time was also further investigated by the 1967 Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada.

 

After hearing about the Irene Murdoch case in March of 1974, my mother decided to initiate, with the permission of the CCW, a fundraising drive for the legal fee concerns related to what had become an evolving eight-year Provincial and Supreme Court Justice involvement in Matrimonial Property Law rights for women. This fundraising initiative was not only fully supported in Alberta, where the case originally took place, but also across the country where much support was given in its objective concern.

 

In now adopting the “Legal/Law” file position granted to her as a founding and active member of the Status of Women Active Committee Society, (SWAC), she invested much of her energy in involving herself in many initiatives including:

  

〜 Critically studying and analyzing Matrimonial Property Law rights regarding women.

 

 〜 Educating and informing the public through various public speaking events on themes including sexism in the workplace and equal pay for women.

 

〜 Writing pertinent letters and media articles to educate the public about feminist concerns.

 

As she stated in an article publicly spoken to the CCW, and the University of Calgary’s Social Sciences department, her motto was, and I quote:

 

“Be Active, Be Knowledgeable, and Be Responsible”

 

Indeed, it was not until 1980 that a final declaration of women’s rights was beginning to be fully realized in the area of Matrimonial Property Law thanks to her extensive voluntary work.

 

While one does not normally go through life assuming that the confluence of one’s personal life events and objectives necessarily predictably point to an honor of some recognition or award nomination, in my mother’s case, the eventuality of such an honor would take shape within what one could assume the trajectory of numerous and differing unique life events that would lead up to the possibility of such a recognition to be fully realized. These differing life events would include, among them, her multicultural experiences of living both in India and Argentina; surviving WWII and the Quetta earthquake of 1935; pursuing and evolving both her educational and work careers, (including biological and geological research, science instruction and realtor duties); and lastly, but not least, raising a family in a foreign country when arriving as a young bride to the country of Argentina in 1949.

 

Interweaving among all these events, however, would be the additional significant detail, sometimes overlooked by others, of a journey she would also undertake which would be political in nature, but yet not fully recognized until she would come to self-determine her own personal convictions as she would see fit in the values, beliefs, and truths she would evolve and hold with certitude through time.

 

In my mother’s case, this “invisible” interweaving political journey would begin with the negative impressionable effects that were left on a young adolescent girl’s mind with the experiences of WWII; the eventual growing tensions of a Cold War; the possible consequent effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis; the growing awareness, because of this, of the vulnerable possibility of becoming a young widow; the unpredictable widowship of Jacqueline Bouvier Jennedy; the growing political instability in Argentina by 1968; the resultant determination to want to secure a brighter, more democratic future for her family by emigrating to Canada in 1969; and, lastly, the witness of what was during this period of time, the rise of the Second Wave of Feminism, and the parallel concerns shown by the Canadian Federal Government to initiate the Royal Commission of the Status of Women in 1967.

 

With these factors in mind then, one could assume, that with the confluence of all these political parameters in place, their personal experiences would have lended for the opportunity to confirm and reaffirm a consolidation and realization of a political self-identity unique to herself. As she states in one of her official letters:

 

“I am a Feminist. I am proud to be so.”

 

 In another letter she also states:

 

“My Argentine experiences made me very sensitive to Human Rights. The feeling of relief to be (in Canada) … a democratic country, was at first overwhelming, but later this changed to the realization that democracy was not synonymous to justice. Discrimination against women and the Report of the Royal Commission of the Status of Women in 1968 directed my thoughts towards women’s issues. I have always considered indifference a sin and an article by Nancy Millar on Irene Murdoch, written in Time Magazine in 1974 was the spark that changed thought to action.”

 

With the culmination of these varying life experiences and the political objectives she pursued, the honor of a nomination by the YWCA in 1979 only emphasized the importance of recognizing all her volunteer efforts, as well as the consequent recognition she would be bestowed with the passing of a reformed and revised Matrimonial Property Act of 1980. Her hard work would finally pay off. Indeed, it would not be until the Family Property Act of 2000 that another revision would be seen under the auspices of Matrimonial Property Law. Withdrawing thereafter from interests political in pursuit, she then decided to divert more of her attention to educational objectives in areas of studies related to botany and electronics technology, as well as docenting for the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta.

 

The late 1980s an early 1990s also saw her travel extensively throughout parts of India, China, Mexico, Italy, and Greece, and finally to the Galapagos Islands in 1998, where her interests in Biology and Darwinian evolutionary theoretical thought would be fully realized.

 

The next decade would see her, again, volunteering, this time as a land steward for the Calgary Field Nationalist’s Society which, one could presume, she was influenced by not only for her love for nature, but also by her membership to the Calgary Pollution Control Association, when she was awarded first prize recognition in 1975 by the North West Pacific Pollution Control Association in Air and Water Pollution Control studies, taught through the then Mount Royal College institute. Indeed, her family will always remember her for her love for nature and the many enjoyable outings she had together with them identifying flowers, camping, skiing, and hiking.

 

Finally, as someone who always felt reformative change could only happen by being “Active, Knowledgeable, and Responsible”, it is also important to note that, as she states in one of her correspondences, she was, quote, “willing to endure the stress that an advocate must accept” in order to overcome the resistant challenges a society can always present to and from its citizens. This resistance to an evolving, positive change was something she was willing to overcome and which she would effectively physically symbolize with her successful ascent, among others, of Mt. Argentina in 1962. For this reason, and still to this day, I feel honored and humbled to have been her daughter, and all the important influences she left behind for me.