By turns a wife, mother and a nurse during her lifetime, Jean Maitland will perhaps best be remembered as a woman who not only stood by her convictions in life, but died in accordance with them as well.
 |
MAITLAND |
A pioneering member of the Memorial Society of Northern Ontario, Maitland had difficulty understanding why anybody should have to pay thousands of dollars for an expensive coffin when a simple pine box would suffice.
The Sudbury senior was reading a brochure published by the St. Franciscan Monastery in Washington over a decade ago when she was struck by the idea of a dual-purpose, custom-made casket. Impressed by the idea, Maitland commissioned a local cabinetmaker to build her a decorative pine bookcase/casket with a lid for $600.
Maitland, 85, died of a stroke Nov. 10. A memorial service is scheduled for 3 pm Nov. 29 at St. Andrew?s United Church, 111 Larch St.
?Jean was one of the pioneers of the Memorial Society in Sudbury,? said past-president John Lindsay.
?Jean was very concerned...she wanted to make sure people were aware there were alternatives (to expensive funerals). I think frugal is a word that could best be used to describe Jean.?
Three years ago, the society honoured Maitland for her distinguished service.
Collin Bourgeois, manager of the Co-operative Funeral Home , said Maitland?s funeral arrangements marked the first time the funeral home had ever dealt with a bookcase/casket.
While he thought it was somewhat ?unorthodox,? Bourgeois said the funeral home deferred to Maitland?s wishes because ?she would have wanted it that way.?
In the end, however, Maitland wasn?t buried in the casket. She was cremated, her ashes interred next to her late husband, Fred, in Parklawn Cemetery.
Daughter Joanne Maitland-Kaiser, who lives in Washington, D.C., said although her mother had second thoughts about using the shelving unit as a casket because of its beauty, in the end it was used as planned. ?It was truly made for her.
Maitland is also survived by her son Dan of Colleyville, Texas, her brother Dan Linton of Toronto, and three grandchildren.
?Michael James
