Catherine Judith “Judy” MacDougall (BA, MSW)

Catherine Judith “Judy” MacDougall died peacefully on April 22, 2025, at Fair Haven Vancouver Lodge. She was 82.

A well-travelled, well-read and proudly independent woman, Judy was loved by her large extended family of sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and the many cousins and friends whose roots are in Cape Breton but the branches of which spread across Canada.

Judy grew up the youngest girl of six brothers and eight sisters in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. She joined the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame after high school and continued her education in Antigonish, obtaining her Diploma in Education from Saint Francis Xavier University in 1966, and teaching in Truro and Sydney before she returned to StFX for her Bachelor of Arts, class of 1970.

After leaving the order, Judy’s lifelong career in social work began as an adoption worker for the Children’s Aid Society while she obtained her Master of Social Work from Dalhousie University in 1972.

Judy’s career took her west in 1980, first to Edmonton at the University of Alberta Hospital as a social services supervisor and then to the city she loved, Vancouver, in 1982. Living on the edge of Stanley Park in Vancouver’s West End, Judy worked as a social worker at the UBC Health Sciences Center and in the Neurological Center with brain-injured patients and their families before opening private practice. She continued to provide hospital social work support in a variety of institutions, including Lion’s Gate Hospital, the Neurological Center and the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, until her retirement.

She is survived by her brothers, Ray (Cela MacDonald) of Halifax, N.S., and David (Linda MacNeil) of Dartmouth, N.S.; her sisters, Pat (Leonard) MacDonald of Dartmouth, N.S., Yvonne (Tony) Donahue of Calgary, AB, Carol (Joe) Morrison of Bedford, N.S., and Marion (Sandy) Burke of New Waterford, N.S.; and her 31 nieces and nephews, and their families.

Judy took her auntly duties seriously. Though she spent the majority of her adult life and social work career on the West Coast while most of her family was in Eastern Canada, she still managed to broaden the worlds of her many nephews and nieces with letters, birthday cards, her photography, postcards from her travels, and annual magazine subscriptions of Ahoy, Owl, Chickadee or Highlights. Many of them can’t hear a Raffi song without thinking of her and the children’s albums she sent their way.

Judy could always be counted on for intelligent conversations on current affairs, books, art and life. Her thoughtful questions, infectious laugh and love of sushi will be missed.

She was predeceased by her parents, Mary (Bruce) and James MacDougall; her sisters, Bernadette, Jean, Myrna and Audrey; and her brothers, David and Louis (the twins), Dan and Bruce.

Thank you to Judy’s Nelson Street neighbours, and the staff at Windermere Centre and on Magnolia Drive, Fair Haven Vancouver Lodge, for caring and supporting Judy over the years that she was living with dementia.

Donations in Judy’s honour can be made to Southland’s Therapeutic Riding Society, Doctors Without Borders, The Nature Conservancy of Canada, or to a charity of your choice.

Arrangements are being handled by Kearney Funeral Services of Vancouver and V.J. McGillivray’s in New Waterford. A scattering of ashes will take place in English Bay, Vancouver, on Sunday, May 18. A second celebration of life will take place at St. Agnes Cemetery in New Waterford, Nova Scotia, to be confirmed at a later date.