Joel Meredith ROCHON

JOEL MEREDITH ROCHON 1931 - 2019 Author, humanist, wise patriarch of a large family, died at St. Michael's Hospital following a stroke on January 1, 2019. He was deeply in love with his remarkable wife of 62 years, Mary Rochon, his five children and their spouses who all adored him, Paula (Douglas), Joel (Alison), Lisa (John), Martin (Nadia), Murray, and his 17 devoted grandchildren: Steuart (Patricia), Katie, Cameron; Patterson (Cheryl), Bronte, Kate, William; Geneviève (Bernard), Alexander, Hannah, Dylan; Adam, Connor, Benjamin; Jack, Claire, Gwyneth, and great grandchild, Aspy Rose. He is survived by sisters-in-law Margaret Priske and Olga McDonald, and predeceased by his sister, Helen Nerby. Joel lived by the words of Marcus Aurelius: "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one". He offered light and laughs to all he encountered, not only to his clan but to people he met in shops, during his travels, to new graduates searching for direction, or young couples during the marriage preparation courses he and Mary led for years for Newman Centre. As a successful executive (Ford Motor Company, T. Eaton Company) and founder of Rochon Partners Corp., a strategic executive search and business consultancy, and as a board member (Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, St. Elizabeth Health Care), he influenced and guided both major corporations and individuals seeking to reach their highest aspirations. An accomplished athlete, he played football and hockey for the Notre Dame Hounds, and as an octogenarian was still playing tennis matches and swimming daily. He was a prolific writer, as a teenager crafting stories on an old Olympia typewriter in Kimberley, BC, and as a young reporter at The Albertan in Calgary. Fuelled by the dream of writing the great Canadian novel, he wrote wherever he could, at home, at the cottage on Lake Huron or Wolf Lake, and later, while spending time annually in Mexico with Mary, inspired by the arts and San Miguel Writer's Conference. His rhyming birthday cards written over decades for each family member - numbering in the hundreds with singing/guitar choruses performed by the cousins - have become legendary. He wrote two colourful and sharply drawn memoirs of his extraordinary life, beginning when he was handed over for adoption at a hockey rink in Cranbrook, British Columbia to be raised in the Purcell Mountains by a French-speaking miner, Joe, and his gentle wife, Katie. Though he ultimately discovered the identity and story of his birth parents (I.W. Solloway and Tina Safianiuk), the father figure who gave Joel a lifelong spiritual bond was Père Athol Murray, the Catholic priest and iconic visionary who founded the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, where mind, body and soul were all celebrated. Joel's life was guided by love, walking and talking his belief in humanity and the need to connect with all people, to deeply hear their stories. He lived the maxims of Notre Dame that continue to resonate strongly in the homes of his family: "Struggle and Emerge"; "He who does what in him lies, God will not deny his grace." Joel died surrounded by all of his children, and by Mary, who led a powerful and poetic send off for her husband as he slipped away peacefully in the spirit of love he had cultivated profoundly throughout his life. Funeral mass to be held Saturday, January 5, 2019, 11 a.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Church, Newman Chapel, 89 St. George Street, Toronto. Visitation: Friday, January 4, 2019, at 105 Cortleigh Blvd. 4 p.m. - 7 p.m. Remarks 6 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations would be greatly appreciated to the Joel and Mary Rochon Scholarship Fund supporting financially disadvantaged students at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame. Attention Jeff Yanko, j.yanko@notredame.ca