Sally Sarah Courtney

Sally Courtney passed away on October 26, 2020 at the Queensway Carleton Hospital, succumbing to septic shock and pneumonia after a twelve-day battle in the ICU.  She fought to the end.  Sally had also been struggling with PMR for the past 18 months.  Special thanks to her  ICU doctors Choudry, Iyengar and Reid plus four other specialists and a long list of fourteen nurses who supported her.  She had the best care and medical technology possible.

She is survived by her husband Joe, her children, Heather (David) Burnett and John (Jennifer), her sister, Peggy (Roldano) Dalla Rosa and their son Paolo, and by her three grandchildren Sarah Burnett, and Jackson and Kyle Courtney. Predeceased by her parents, Joseph Albert and Mildred Blais, and in-laws, Justin and Una Courtney, along with her many aunts and uncles in Quebec.

Sally was “old Ottawa.”  Born at the Civic Hospital on November 25, 1943, while her father was serving overseas in the Navy during World War II, she spent her first years in an apartment on Friel Street in Sandy Hill.  In the early 1950s, her family moved to the new suburb of Manor Park (Hemlock Road) and she played across the road in the unfenced property of Beechwood Cemetery where she will be laid to rest in 2021.  Her family enjoyed skating in the Minto Follies, and trekked to Camp Fortune to use their new rope tow. Her mother Mildred, McGill ’38 (Phys Ed), gave her a tennis ball at an early age and Sally enjoyed practicing off a wall outside the Manor Park Public School.  Years later, Sally was on the McGill tennis team.  A 1964 McGill grad, she was a student teacher with Brian Murray and maintained contact with McGill hockey alumni.  After a stint teaching at Hull High, Sally decided to go back to school in 1966 this time at Bishop’s University. So she hopped into her black MGB to Lennoxville, and became the Captain and MVP of the Bishop’s woman’s basketball team.  Later back in Ottawa, she taught at Sir Wilfred Laurier High School and was very proud of her girls’ junior basketball team winning the City championship in the early 1970s.

While both working as summer students in the Planning Department of the National Capital Commission in 1967, Sally met Joe Courtney and they were married in 1970. They recently celebrated their 50^th anniversary quietly amid the Covid-19 era, having had to cancel a return trip to their honeymoon destination in Bermuda.

She was always well-groomed and well-dressed, even after days “up river” on the Britannia Yacht Club cruise weeks.  An excellent helmswoman, who taught sailing at Camp Kawabi in her youth, Sally steered her C&C27 yacht “Endurance” through safe waters since 1997.

A born organizer with a good eye for detail and what was “proper,” Sally supervised many of the details for the 1972 construction of her only married home along with numerous renovations made since.  She was also an avid and health-conscious chef who enjoyed cooking from scratch, and planned the best foods to counteract PMR in her later years.

Sally was spiritual, in that she believed in the power of nature. 

Sarah, Jackson and Kyle were Sally’s treasured grandchildren and reason to keep going. She sent them photo albums, emails and gifts/cards on every special occasion. Summer times around the family pool, or as a snowbird spending winters in Cocoa Beach, were very special to Sally.

Friends and family are invited to visit at the Beechwood National Memorial Centre, 280 Beechwood Avenue, on Saturday, July 23, 2022 from 12noon until time a Memorial Service in the Sacred Space at 1:00PM. Interment and reception to follow. Please join us to raise a glass in memory of our dear Sally.

Should you not be able to attend the service in person, please click on the link above and you may register for the livestreaming of the service.

Sally will always be loved and remembered.