Genevieve O'GRADY

Genevieve 'Jennie' O'Grady, 85 Longtime friends of Genevieve "Jennie" O'Grady, an active senior who enjoyed the comforts of her own home until a broken hip last summer, were saddened by her death last month. A stubborn weed in her garden caused her to topple onto a rock, resulting in a painful fracture. If this wasn't bad enough, while she was recuperating in hospital an arsonist broke into her empty home on Wall Street, helped himself to the contents of her liquor supply, then went upstairs and set fires to the mattresses. Considerable damage was done to the upper floors and contents of the home. She went to Rosedale Retirement Centre to recuperate while awaiting repairs to the house. Throughout this ordeal, she insisted she was going back to her home soon. Furthermore, her 85th birthday had come and gone on October 1. In mid-February, she was hospitalized in palliative care at the former St. Vincent de Paul Hospital now known as the Garden Street site of the Brockville General. She died in the hospice on February 18. Jennie O'Grady spent practically her entire life working and living in downtown Brockville. Her earlier career was spent in the insurance business, working for about 30 years as an office consultant at the Owen R. Davis Company on King St. After the office closed in the mid 1970s, she was invited by Leeds MP Tom Cossitt to join his family insurance office where she remained until after his death in 1982. Her next move was to the constituency office of Leeds-Grenville MPP Robert Runciman in the old Victoria School on Wall Street, only steps from her home. She was joined there by her sister Madge and for the next 10 years both worked as constituency secretaries until retiring in 1991. Jennie O'Grady was the fourth of 12 children of Leonard O'Grady and his wife, the former Genevieve Leeder, of Lansdowne, a former school teacher. The family moved to Brockville in the Great Depression when Jennie was seven. Her father worked at the Ontario Hospital (later known as BPH) and the family lived in a large red-brick house on Keefer Street for quite a few years before moving to Wall Street. All the O'Grady children went through the Brockville separate school system and Brockville Collegiate Institute. Jennie entered BCI when only 11 years old, graduating at the tender age of 15. While several of her siblings were writers (brother Gerald was a former sports writer and news reporter before becoming a longtime front-page editor of The Recorder and Times), Jennie's interests were more of a practical nature. She was happiest engaged in home improvements, papering, painting, sanding floors and redecorating the house from top to bottom every few years. She was a fine seamstress and knitter, a good cook and a warm hostess for family gatherings. Although she never drove a car, she managed to get around and enjoy life. Her main sport was badminton and she was a longtime enthusiastic member of the Brockville Rifles Badminton Club in the 1950s and '60s. She also belonged to the Brockville Country Club. She was a longtime member of the Leeds-Grenville Progressive Conservative Association. A devout Catholic all her life and regular parishioner of St. Francis Xavier Church, she was a longtime member of the Catholic Women's League and the Children of Mary. Jennie O'Grady is survived by her youngest brother, Patrick O'Grady and his wife Barbara, of Athens, both retired BCI teachers; and three younger sisters, all widows, Theresa Brigden of Bramalea, Joan Smith of Georgetown and Margaret Hawken of Burlington, as well as a great many nieces, nephews and cousins. She was predeceased by her older brother, Joseph, a sergeant-observer with the RCAF bomber command whose plane and crew were lost when they crashed in Holland on returning to their British base in 1945; and two younger brothers, John O'Grady, a supermarket manager in the Alexandria area, who died in the early 1980s, and Gerald "Jerry" O'Grady, a 40-year member of this newspaper's editorial staff, who died suddenly at home in 1994; and by two younger sisters, Justine "Tina" in 1994, a month after Jerry, and Madeline "Madge" O'Grady in 2004. (Jerry, Tina and Madge had the family home with Jennie.) She was also more recently predeceased by her two older sisters: Loretta McGuire, who with her husband Dr. Mike McGuire and their large family lived on Victoria Avenue for many years, but moved to Ottawa a few years ago (Dr. McGuire survives and is now over 90); and Kathleen "Kay" Monahan (widow of Tom), of Kingston, who died in Kingston two years ago. Family and friends gathered at the Irvine Funeral Home and Chapel, Brockville, on February 21. The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated February 22 in St. Francis Xavier Church. Father Brian Price was celebrant with Father Paul McAvoy. Burial followed in the family plot in St. Francis Xavier Cemetery. The pallbearers, all nephews of Miss O'Grady, were Kevin McGuire, Pat Smith, John O'Grady, Cullen and Chris Hawken and Tom Monahan. Memorial donations were directed to the Hospice of Providence Palliative Care at the Garden Street Site of BGH. -- By Betty MacDowell, former Recorder and Times staff writer and longtime friend of the O'Grady family. # Published in Section b, page 8 in the Saturday, March 24, 2007 edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times. # Posted 9:59:55 AM Saturday, March 24, 2007.