Diana Jeannette Magill

May 16, 1925, Montreal - November 5, 2020, Ottawa

Diana seemed to fit several lifetimes into one, as one does. She was an Armstrong, a Steacie and a Magill; for a long time she was Jan but finally she was just completely Diana. 

She was proud of her scholarship in literature at McGill, and at Lisgar and Westmount before that, and in journalism and film studies at Carleton later on. And she was very proud of the lineage of scholars who preceded and followed her in the family tree.

She loved art and music and travel and she read widely and deeply.

She was a painter and looked at the world with an artist's eye. 

She loved conversation and she loved to talk. She said she could talk the leg off a chair. Late in life she confessed to being a snob and didn't mind casting aspersions. Such are the freedoms of later life.

She raised a family with her husband Bill Magill, having not one or two but five children: Stephen (daughter Eva Magill), Heather (w/ Dave Atkins; children Magill Foote, Madeleine Foote, Charlotte Kirby), Rory (w/ Kathy Armstrong; daughter Iris Magill), Kyle (w/ Catherine Connors; children Emilia Magill, Jasper Magill) and David (w/ Thais (Fitzsimmons) Magill; children Daniel Magill, Evan Magill).

But she was a solo flyer in spirit and once the family was raised, she went out on her own, blazing her own singular path, making art, traveling, studying and enjoying exciting new friendships throughout a sometimes tumultuous adventure of a life.

Her children and grandchildren were deeply important to her. In her last days she said she finally fully understood that she is in her children and that they are part of her; and that, through her children, she is in her grandchildren; just as her parents Ned and Dorothy (Day) Steacie, and Roy Armstrong, are in her, and so on.

She had happy childhood adventures and travels (particularly in Germany) with her parents and her brother Dick Steacie (w/ Ann (Putman) Steacie). Her own children grew up as good friends with their cousins the "Young Steacies", and Diana and Dick were friends for life.

She received all the love the family sent her as she prepared to depart, and she was filled with joy, proclaiming "Everybody loves me!" almost surprised, and then with no doubt "I love EVERYBODY".

She was blessed with near perfect health right into year 95. She was doubly blessed to finish her life in a state of genuine peace and happiness, in the loving care of the magnificent team at the Civic Hospital.

On her last day she said she was having an excellent death, and her last words were "Get me out of here, I want to go home."

She rests now ever after in the beautiful MacLaren Cemetery outside Ottawa in Wakefield QC.

Her art, like her spirit, lives on:

instagram@dianamagill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAWAFmHZKk4