Parcourez la nécrologie de Dr Elizabeth Smith Macdonald Podnieks BScN ES EdD C résidant dans la province Ontario pour le détail des funérailles.
Dr. Elizabeth Smith Macdonald Podnieks passed away peacefully on February 2, 2024, in Toronto. Born in Montreal on August 5, 1929, to Elizabeth Marie Smith and Col. Ronald St. John Macdonald, M.D., she was the loving and beloved mother of Andrew Podnieks (Mary Jane Podnieks) and Elizabeth Podnieks (Ian Smith), and Grammy extraordinaire to Zachary Podnieks Smith and Emily Macdonald Smith. She was predeceased by her husband, Ints “Peter” Podnieks; brother, Ronald St. John Macdonald, C.C.; and sister, Dr. Mairi Teresa Macdonald.
In a 2020 profile that appeared in CanAge, Canada’s National Seniors’ Advocacy Organization, mom is described as a “Vanguard, Scholar, Hero.” She began her nursing education at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, and continued her studies at the University of Toronto (B.Sc.N.). She held nursing positions in London (UK), Boston, and Halifax, before becoming a nurse educator first at Toronto’s Wellesley School of Nursing and later at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), on whose nursing faculty she served from 1973 to 1995. She completed a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies at York University in 1983; her thesis was one of the first to consider the problem of elder abuse in Canada. In 1990, she was the Principal Investigator of the landmark National Survey of Elder Abuse in Canada, the first of its kind in the world. Five years later, she completed a Doctorate of Education (Gerontology/Sociology) at the University of Toronto.
Her research, advocacy, and activism were boundless. She was the founder of the Ontario Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (ONPEA) and the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (CNPEA). She was also a founding member of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA), serving in executive roles for all three organizations. Perhaps closest to her heart, she established World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) in 2006, and since 2011, this Day—June 15—has been recognized as a United Nations Day by the General Assembly.
For her outstanding accomplishments, Elizabeth Podnieks was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2000. Among other honours, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal; the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) Rosalie Wolf Award; the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA) Rosalie Wolf Award; and a Lifetime Achievement Award by NAPSA. In 2020, CanAge created the Elizabeth Podnieks Award for Elder Rights in Canada, and made her its inaugural recipient.
Over the course of decades, she was active at conferences, meetings, and workshops at local, national, and international levels. She was a pioneer in her field and an inspiration to her colleagues. Her publications are too numerous to list, but her last contribution, as both co-editor and co-author, was the scholarly collection The Worldwide Face of Elder Abuse (Springer), which was published in 2023, as she approached her 94th birthday.
While maintaining superhuman energies, mom was utterly devoted to her family, and her family loved her unreservedly—for her laughter, generosity, and wisdom; for her spiritual connection to trees, plants, and water; and for her singular sense of fashion and refusal to wear practical shoes.
We would like to extend our deepest thanks to the staff at Belmont House, where Elizabeth had been living since 2016, and we will be forever grateful to the extraordinary team at St. Michael’s Hospital who took such tender and dignified care of our magnificent mother in the final weeks of her life.
There will be both a funeral and celebration of life in April, the former taking place at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Lismore, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, the latter at a location in Toronto soon to be determined. Please refer to www.morleybedford.ca for more information.

2024

Morley Bedford Funeral Services Ltd

Décès pour la Ville:Toronto, Province: Ontario

avis deces Dr Elizabeth Smith Macdonald Podnieks BScN ES EdD C

nécrologie Dr Elizabeth Smith Macdonald Podnieks BScN ES EdD C

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