Parcourez la nécrologie de Sonja Elizabeth Wood 19612024 résidant dans la province Nova Scotia pour le détail des funérailles

Sonja Elizabeth Wood
1961-2024
Sonja was born in
Newmarket, Ontario on September 26th, 1961, but when she was 3 years
of age she and her sister Tammy moved to Nova Scotia, where they would
soon begin new lives into their adoptive family, the Wood’s. Most of
her childhood was spent up on the small family farm in Mt. Thom, where
there was always work to be done around the barn or gardens. Sonja can
be said to have had a sheltered upbringing, wholesome homegrown meals,
and Pentecostal teachings. School, on the other hand, was not so kind
to Sonja who struggled to do well. In later years she tells us that
scoring good grades was provably impossible, and her hopes of becoming
a vet were in vain.
Another of Sonja’s
pastimes was singing, mostly in church, but also with her sister on a
makeshift stage behind their house with the family for an audience. As
she became a teenager, her tastes began to lean into the rock’n’roll
and folk and country music genres, and soon she had performed along
with her uncle Jimmy in his band Little Smoke, lighting a spark that
would never depart Sonja in years to come.
After high school,
Sonja moved away from Mt. Thom and began a series of small jobs before
deciding to pursue music studies at Acadia University. Sonja dreamt of
being a lead singer in a rock band, and she had the goods to pull it
off. She had stage presence, a beautiful and confident voice, a
‘perfect’ sense of pitch, and she was beautiful! But before she could
join a band or begin her formal studies, she had just one little thing
that had to be taken care of first. Sonja had seen the newscasts about
starvation among the Ethiopian peoples, and government had sent one
airlift of supplies (but had no plans to send a second shipment), so
she was going to walk around the entire province of Nova Scotia with
her sheepdog Sampson, for protection, to raise awareness and donations
to put the Ethiopian situation back into the news
cycle.
It worked. Sonja
walked for about two months, travelled through countless communities,
and was lauded by all for her tenacity and civil awareness –
something not often so admirably developed in a 23-year-old. Sonja
became a Nova Scotia icon, a hero, and a household name in many parts.
Her story and journey was only beginning.
Three weeks after
finishing her epic trek, Sonja ended up getting an apartment in
Wolfville and registered for the upcoming semester at Acadia. She had
a live stage audition with a band in Berwick, and got the job before
she even walked off the stage. She and two friends then drove home
towards Wolfville where they would be involved in a terrible head-on
collision with another car. While her friends survived with minor
injuries, Sonja was left paralyzed from the waist down. A delegate
from the Ethiopian consulate drove down to visit her in the hospital
and told her she was officially recognized as Ethiopian
Family.
Sonja’s spirit, and
constitution, burned bright and strong as ever. She vowed to someday
get back on her feet, even planning to shirk-off the paralysis, and
amazed everyone in the rehab with a speedy recovery and rebound
straight back to Wolfville where her music studies and rock’n’roll
career awaited. However, soon the realities of her limited mobility,
the steep hills of the town, and difficulties accessing all her
classes caused her to drop out and focus instead on her performing
career.
Social activism would
soon come to Sonja again. While she was forever helping others in
small and meaningful ways, she always seemed to find another BIG
cause, and to each she would apply her special tenacity, along with
numerous homemade placards or signs. Without being exhaustive the
milestones include: biking around the province on a hand-powered
3-wheeled road trike (to show support for Canadian Unity during the
Quebec Separation crisis); a 17-day roadside ‘vigil’ alongside the
spot where her accident and paralysis occurred (to pressure the
provincial government into Twinning Hwy. 101, it worked, and many
people see Sonja as one of the heroes); a 43-day roadside ‘vigil’ at
the Ben Jackson crossing on Hwy. 101 (to pressure the government
again, into properly servicing the area with a full
highway-interchange instead of secluding it with a tunnel…it
worked); Sonja assumed the chair-person role for the Friends of the
Avon River in 2002, and has fought with the provincial government and
federal DFO for more than two decades to see the rightful restoration
of the Avon River to it’s former, pre-causeway healthfulness, for fish
populations, which she loved (Sonja technically won this battle too,
though the project hasn’t officially concluded, and the PLAN for the
river not yet ‘out of the bag’). With regard to the fish of the Avon
River, Sonja organized numerous petitions through the years, to a
succession of different Ministers of Fisheries, and held meetings,
rallies, and in 2019 travelled on her wheelchair-scooter, along
secondary highways, from the Avon River causeway all the way to Ottawa
(to pressure the feds to uphold their fisheries’ laws and do right by
this river).
Outside of activism,
Sonja was also quite busy. She went on to have two beautiful girls,
Ayla and Alysha, and to build an ambitious family home on the banks of
the Avon River, overlooking the cliffs at Blue Beach. She did
volunteer work for several disabilities foundations, and travelled to
New York to help develop a prototype walking-brace…which she kept in
her attic for years. She lobbied with Ralph Nader against Ford
Pinto’s, the car she was in during her accident. Most impressively
though, she worked on her music career, releasing two cd’s and two
videos under her own name, and was nominated for each at the
ECMA’s.
Not being able to
focus on just one goal, Sonja let music slip to the wayside and began
to develop the Blue Beach Fossil Museum with her new partner, Chris,
who caught her eye and had an apartment full of fossils from her beach
in particular (which he was researching). Sonja became the heart and
soul of the practical side of this business, allowing Chris to do his
thing with the rocks, and he is still doing it to this day thanks to
her. Scientists around the globe now know of her, and she is soon
having an important volume from the New Mexico Museum of Natural
History and Science dedicated to her honour. She also has two
different ancient fossil forms named after her. The next step in
acknowledging the contributions and bravery of Sonja Wood should
probably be The Order of Canada.
It is therefore with
great, and at times profound sadness that we announce the passing on
October 15th of our most precious and beloved Sonja Elizabeth Wood
after her long battle with cancer. Sonja is survived by: husband,
Chris Mansky; daughters Ayla (Tebogt-Wood) and Alysha (Travis)Wood,
and grandson Aubrey J. Kelly; her siblings Kevin (Tanya) Wood, Tammy
(Danny) Snider, and Trevor (Crystal) Wood; nieces and nephews Stephen,
Sarah, Marc, Kristofer and Richie; aunts and uncles Lillian MacLeod,
Jim (Tina) Wood, Lorna Wood, Johnnie (Leona) Wood, Jim (Helen)
Russell, and Hennie Vessio; and finally, by numerous cousins not named
here. Sonja was predeceased by her parents Chester and Betty Wood, and
by aunts and uncles Bill Wood, Arthene Wood, Ronnie Wood, Mack
MacLeod, Sally Emery, Angus Russell, and Clary Russell.
Sonja’s last plan is
to join her lord in heaven, to fight battles in his name. Godspeed her to her
next project.
Cremation has taken
place and a private family service was held in the White Family
Funeral Home, Kentville. A Celebration of Sonja’s life will
be held at a later date. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to
the White Family Funeral Home and Cremation Services,
Kentville.
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19612024

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Décès pour la Ville Kentville, Province Nova Scotia

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nécrologie Sonja Elizabeth Wood 19612024

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