May 25, 1929 – February 17, 2025 

Mom was the youngest of four children, Irene (Rene), Maxine (Mickey), William (Billy). Additionally, her family took in another child, Amy. Although not formally adopted, mom spoke often and kindly of Amy. 

She was predeceased by her husband, Edward Milne (2001), her son Lee Milne (2019), her father Edwin Mainprize (1940), her mother Evelyn Wood (nee Milner) (1973), her stepfather Francis William Wood (1982). 

She is survived by her son Edward (Margaret) Milne, son Dan Milne, and daughter Heather (John) Nymeyer. Also six grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren, and one great, great grandchild (only three days young at the time of mom’s passing). One of the last conscious things she fondly responded to was hearing that there was a new addition to the “family tree”. Oh! How she loved family news and in particular, family reunions. She would prepare for them all year long. Throughout the years she was passionate about organizing and cataloguing numerous write-ups and photos of any family member that she could get her hands on. Many times she could be found going through her albums and enjoying her favorite moments captured in photographs. 

She would not want a long obituary, so I’ll condense a couple of anecdotes to summarize her character. Our family could honestly write a book on her character traits. Besides being loyal to her family, she was also generous, selfless, and had a good sense of humor. She did love a good (clean) joke and appreciated a well thought out practical prank. 

Mom attended school in Vancouver and at the end of each school year travelled with her parents to Pritchard to spend the summers with her grandparents and Uncle Lance. Her father would always make arrangements (or rather he would inform the school with non-negotiable terms) that she wouldn’t be rejoining her classmates until late in September (it would have been interesting to listen in on that conversation, because it sounded like he was quite persuasive).Upon completing public school, mom worked briefly in an office/printing business specializing in making rubber stamps. Soon afterwards her mom and stepfather bought a small farm in Pritchard and moved closer to her grandparents. It was at this time she met her future husband, Edward Milne. They were married shortly thereafter, and the Vancouver city girl became the wife of a farmer/logger/sawmill operator. They started out living in a small log cabin (with no running water or hydro) with a breathtaking unobstructed panoramic view overlooking the South Thompson River, the hills on the south side of Kamloops, Todd Mountain and towards the mountains on the west side of Chase. After their second child was born, they outgrew the cabin and moved to a slightly larger home only to add onto it as the family grew to four children. 

Mom, as were many ladies from that era, was very adept at sewing, knitting, cooking and gardening. During harvesting season, their farm would employ some local lads to help out and a testament to how good her cooking was, one only had to look at the helpers go back for second and third helpings of the main meal and they would still manage to find room for multiple desserts. Desserts were always plentiful on the farm and her raspberry tarts were a big hit with everyone, young and old – guaranteed, there were no leftovers or a stale one ever to be found. In her younger years she would knit baby outfits for newborn babies, Toques, socks, mitts and sweaters for her children as well as for people in need. In later years she was well known for knitting socks (at the peak of her self-imposed production schedule she would knit a minimum of one pair per week for the entire year). We all looked forward to our crazy socks at birthdays and Christmas and any leftover socks were donated to her favorite charities and/or put in hampers. Mom also made sure that every one of her grandchildren had a hand knitted receiving blanket. Mom also took an interest in bee keeping and along with her stepfather and nephew Butch, set up several hives and harvested the honey for sale to get a modest return on their investment, but more importantly the three of them really enjoyed the social aspect of (being) working together. 

A true testament to her selflessness was in her final days. During this particularly difficult period she was reluctant to accept additional care from nurses and care-aids fearing that they were being taken away from other patients who would need them more. 

Our family is very grateful to the care mom received from Dr. S. Kip, the kind and compassionate staff at Kamloops Seniors Village as well as all the doctors, nurses and care aids that attended to mom in ER and on 7N at Royal Inland Hospital. 

We all say “our mom’s the best”, well…………she really was! 

There will be no service as per mom’s wishes. I know her request to those wishing to honor her would be to do an act of kindness to anyone in need and ask that the recipient pay it forward. The world would then be a little bit better. 

You may offer a message of condolence at Schoening Funeral Service for the Milne family.   

• Date : 2025-02-17
• Location : Kamloops