With sadness, his family announces the passing of John Linton Neale, on January 1, 2022 at the Ruddy-Shenkman Hospice in Ottawa. John was the firstborn child of Kenneth (1924-1999) and Jean (nee Matheson) Neale (1926-1996), raised with brother Richard and sister Kathryn in the home of his paternal grandparents Stanley and Effie Neale in Dundas, Ontario. Following his education in Dundas and at McMaster and Waterloo Universities, John married Anne Dougherty, raised two children, son Chris and daughter Heather, and had a rewarding 29-year career with Bell Canada in Montreal and Ottawa. John was active in his church and his community, chairing school board advisories and school council committees and serving on his condominium board after the move to Kanata.
John greatly enjoyed retirement, highlighted by international trips to the Caribbean, Columbia, Scotland, Morocco, southeast Asia, and Australia. But the main retirement activity for John and his wife Anne was enjoying their beautiful cottage on Centennial Lake in the Madawaska Highlands. There they formed many new friendships and John rekindled his love of music, first informally, then as guitarist and vocalist with the Tall Boyz group, Matawatchan, ON. These pleasures ended too quickly with John’s sudden diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in September, and his subsequent rapid decline.
John leaves bereaved his loving wife of 41 years, Anne, son Chris (Jeannie), daughters Heather (Mehdi), and Sabrina (Alex) Yeudall, and four grandchildren (Duncan, Norah, Adam, and Vivian). He is mourned by brother Richard (Shelley) Neale, nieces Jessica (Connor) and Sarah (Luke), sister Kathy (Peter) Neale, brother-in-law Kevin (Françoise) Dougherty, nephew Thomas (Nadia) and niece Jeanne Guénette, brother-in-law Tim (Nicole) Dougherty, and sister-in-law Margaret Dougherty, and widespread cousins. His many friends accumulated from childhood to those more recently formed in the Matawatchan Community Hall and Kanata have been saddened by this news.
John’s family is greatly appreciative and thankful for the generous assistance provided by family members and friends for Anne and John during his illness. The positive contributions of cousin Brenda Matheson-Eakins and friend Susan Fletcher during this trying period merit acknowledgment without diminishing the many other contributions by his team of family members and friends, medical professionals, in-home nursing and social work team of Home and Community Care Support Services (Champlain) and the staff at the Ruddy-Shenkman Hospice. May others seize the example of Susan and her vivid expression of the ideal of Pay It Forward.
“Do good for others when you can because we are all in this together and may need some form of help in the future.”
Due to Covid restrictions there will not be a visitation at this time. A funeral service will be held at Kanata Baptist Church, 465 Hazeldean Road, Kanata on Thursday, January 6, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. Please use the following link to register your attendance:
John Neale Funeral Service attendance link
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to be made to the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation or Hospice Care Ottawa, Ruddy Shenkman Site.
John was gregarious and loved people. To honour his memory, there will be a gathering of family and friends in the Madawaska Highlands later in the year to celebrate his life with music, laughter and banter, in keeping with how John lived.
Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of John Linton Neale Saturday January 1st 2022..
Death notice for the town of: Ottawa, Province: Ontario