Donna "Christine" Hall

Growing up in various small towns in Northern Ontario shaped the life of Donna Christine Hall (nee Cowan), who passed away peacefully on the morning of August 9, 2024, at her home in Gravenhurst, Ontario.

Christine, as she was known to everyone other than the government, was born in 1949 to skating champion, WW II veteran and father, William Cowan and registered nurse, Miss Bracebridge and mother, Ruth Dollimore. She was the second of four children, Perry Cowan (deceased), Lyle Cowan and Graham Cowan. Her father’s work as an engineer for Ontario Hydro had the family living in towns where nuclear power plants were or were being built. As such, Christine was born in Deep River where she spent her early years before moving to Peterborough for her high school.

However, it was her experiences and substantial time spent in Muskoka where the multi-generational heritage of her parents that dates to the formation of Canada had the most profound effect on her life. It was the incredible beauty and ruggedness and certainly the unpredictability of the region that formed Christine into the rock that she became to so many people that knew and loved her.

She was a top student, talented artist and gifted athlete. It is widely considered among the family, though not officially corroborated, that Christine was the first female high school basketball player to ever dunk a ball during regulation play in Ontario. This is to say that she really could have done anything she wanted with her life. So, when she decided to marry an up-and-coming kid from the city named Richard (Dick) Hall and become life and business partner to him and then give birth to son Christopher and daughter Mardi, those three people immediately became the luckiest people in the world. She would protest these notions when said aloud, but it’s true. Well, the basketball thing might or might not be.

Christine and Richard settled in Scarborough to embark on their life together and raise their family. Christine was smart, curious and openminded and she instilled those qualities in her family. Her kindness was infectious, but not to be mistaken with weakness as her strength and resolve helped her and those that she loved through some very dark days. She was a back-up mother to the friends of her children, a tremendous tailor of Halloween costumes, cleaner of wounds, and maker of butter tarts. In fact, if she had made her butter tart recipe commercially available, there is no doubt that she would have been a household name across Canada.

Christine was an active participant in the community where she easily gathered friends. This of course came through the natural ebbs and flows of family and neighbourhood, as well as her various pursuits like books, tennis and bridge. She was a nasty good bridge player and if there was a movie like Rounders or The Cincinnati Kid about bridge, it would be about Christine. Susan Sarandon would be cast in her role.

A critical thinker and graduate of the University of Toronto, Christine’s knowledge, guidance and hard work served to foster growth in the various family businesses. She played a vital role in helping to build an insurance business along with her husband, and subsequently the insurance business of her daughter. And despite being a lifelong user of Sunlight laundry soap she famously switched allegiances when her son, who worked in advertising, started making commercials for rival brand Cheer.

As with many of those who are blessed with the title of Grandma, she wore it proudly. And she a was pretty damn good at that too. Christine was instrumental from the get-go in the lives of her daughter’s children Calum, Cara and Gavin, to which she provided unconditional love, unwavering support, the occasional ride to hockey and those butter tarts. As the children grew into young people and realized Christine’s knack for fashion, they started calling her “Glamma”. When she had the fortune to welcome Quinncy into the family, the adult son of her beloved daughter-in- law Annette, there was an immediate bond over one another’s mutual kindness and love and respect for his mother. The butter tarts also helped things.

Love and longing for Muskoka remained the steady arc in the story of Christine’s life. So, for the better part of the past 10 to 15 years it evolved from a somewhere to get away to when time and schedule permit, to a more permanent home and a community to both discover and reconnect. She became an able golfer who easily outdrove her husband from the same tee box and got a hole in one on the tricky sixth hole at Muskoka Bay Golf Club, where she was a founding member. She also was known for bringing the occasional ringer to the member guest tournament at the Port Carling Golf Club.

Christine did all these remarkable things while living her life with Type 1 (Juvenile) Diabetes. It is a disease with no cure, and while manageable with vigilance and great strides in medical technology, it is not helpful to the body as it inevitably wears down with age. As such, when her heart began to give her trouble, many of the advances available to the rest of us were not safe for her or didn’t take in the way that they should have. This recently slowed her down, but it did not deter our rock, Christine. Walks became shorter, golf became rides in the cart and a few holes then cheering on her favorite pros Corey Connors and Rory McIlroy on TV. She read even more, watched a ridiculous amount of old British and Australian crime dramas and became the family champion in Wordle. Visits and dinners with friends became more frequent with a standing table on set days at several Muskoka area restaurants with her and her husband and their friends, the Grays.

In what turned out to be her last act of kindness, she was able to get a message directly to the founder of Boston Pizza about the absence of her favourite fish tacos on the menu in Gravenhurst. He immediately had it rectified. Who knows, she might have even passed him the recipe to her butter tarts, which would obviously become their number one menu item.

She was 75 years old and if she were to read this she would just smile and say, “Egad! You guys are so full of baloney.”

A viewing and reception will be held for Christine on Tuesday August 20th from 1-4pm at Cavill - Turner Funeral Home: 215-1 Bay St, Gravenhurst, ON P1P 1H1

Christine will be laid to rest in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto beside her beloved grandson Calum. A viewing and service will be held on Wednesday, August 21th from 1pm-3pm, followed by her interment at 3:15, and reception from 3:30-5:30 at Mount Pleasant Cemetery Toronto: 375 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, ON M4T 2V8

In lieu of flowers please make donations to the Heart and Stroke foundation or Diabetes Canada.

Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/ 

Canadian Diabetes Association: https://www.diabetes.ca/