Beloved wife of Stephen Slemon; stepmother to Allie Slemon (Andrea Eadie); grandmother to Arbor Eadie; sister to Nancy Wallace, Catherine Wallace, Laura Howcroft (Ian Howcroft); sister-in-law to Sally Thorne (Mary Adlersberg), Mark Slemon (Jennifer Day), Jane Slemon (Bob Ennenberg); aunt to Tanya, Bradley, Carly, Leah, Michael, Kathleen, Geoffrey, Douglas and Megan.
She was a gardener, bird-watcher, lover of landscapes, and champion of all living things, including her beloved dogs Hamilton, Jessie, Picos, and Bodhi, and the cats she named after movie characters played by the actor Robert DeNiro.
A popular, and enormously celebrated professor of English & Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Jo-Ann chaired her home Department during a time of intellectual reorientation, curriculum overhaul, and graduate program expansion. When the University’s Woman Studies program fell under threat of cancellation, she took on the role of Chair, and then worked to transform the program into a full, independent Department. She edited the scholarly journal English Studies in Canada, in the process reshaping its look, its content, its professional impact, and its social relevance.
Her scholarship, always feminist in approach, focused on early British modernism, and especially on women whose lives and works did not fit easily into accepted literary critical moulds. With Bridget Elliot she published a monograph on women writers and visual artists at the intersection of their art forms. Her work on the overlooked novelist and polemicist Edith Ellis, one of the founders of the Fellowship of the New Life in the 1880s, made an argument for a different way of writing the history of modernist socialism, feminism, and sexology. Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway accompanied her through most of her professional life, which resulted, among other achievements, in the publication of a new, scholarly edition of the novel, with Broadview Press, in 2012.
From typing out the entire text of Mrs Dalloway, word by word, for the new edition, Jo-Ann learned something about the interplay between literary imagination and memory, and wrote about it in the London Review of Books. Like Woolf, she could pelt with laughter – a skill she deployed during the Covid years by trolling the so-called Freedom Convoy protesters on Facebook and on TikTok. She was a master of dry humour, of pointed understatement, of the perfect, capturing phrase.
Jo-Ann threw herself into life, and she crafted hers beautifully. She relished social engagement. She noticed people. She listened deeply, and sought to understand. When asked, she gave wise counsel. She overflowed with ideas, and shared them generously.
One of those ideas resulted in the creation of a memoir-writing group, which included, among others, the late Margaret Ann Armour, Pat Clements, Isobel Grundy, Margaret Mackay, and Jeanne Perreault. From her writing for that group, Jo-Ann produced a book-length memoir, entitled A Life in Pieces. It will be published by Thistledown Press in August, 2024.
We thank her care providers at BC Cancer, and at the Medicine Shoppe on Fort Street in Victoria, for their years of attention to Jo-Ann. We thank the many students who have carried her spirit forward in their own spectacular academic careers. We thank her many fast and enduring friends, to whom she brought her undivided attention, her loyalty, and her genius for nuance.
Her green burial will take place at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria, followed by a small, informal gathering of local friends and neighbours at her home.
Condolences may be offered to the family below.
McCall Gardens
www.mccallgardens.com
37 Responses
It has been some time since I last saw Jo-Ann, but she has always been in my memory since our days together as grad students at York. Wise and witty, thoughtful and kind, it was a true pleasure to have shared her company. Stephen, my deepest condolences to you on your loss.
The thickness of this grief lies heavy. My thoughts are with Stephen and with the many students, colleagues, and friends who mourn Jo-Ann. My own image of Jo-Ann begins with her observational super-powers, especially her attunement to beauty in the quotidian. Rigorous yet capacious, with a critical judgment balanced by a robust curiosity, she *noticed*. Unsurprisingly for someone who co-wrote a book on modernist artists, Jo-Ann surrounded herself with stunning, quirky, gorgeous, and feminist pieces of art. From Amy Loewan’s paper weaving to “tea cup Lady”, from her framing of her own garden to the gems discovered at small town shops, Jo-Ann collected the details of her world and re-presented them to us to see them anew; I am breath-takingly grateful for what she showed me. She crafted her life with aesthetic intention, intellectual astuteness and always comic irony. While she was a formative academic mentor to me as a junior faculty member, it has been in her post-retirement and in the mountains that I was graced with her friendship. She really did provide a masterclass in dying, not just with dignity, but with LIFE. We may wish we didn’t have to be students of this hard lesson but as any good pedagogue knows — and Jo-Ann wasn’t just a good one but a great one — the most difficult lessons are also often the most meaningful. Stephen, you co-taught that hard class; what a gift you gave her, care-giving and travelling along with such attentiveness, compassion and love. The world’s ether will hold many particles of Jo-Ann’s life for years to come, especially in the infinite wonders of and on the page.
When I think of Jo-Ann’s life in pieces, I think of her U of A life, her Canmore life and her Victoria life—each stitched together by her wry, self-crafted, inscrutable character. As a colleague, she counseled (me) wisely, supervised with extraordinary, critical generosity, recovered and championed “minor” feminist modernists, and authored some of the most original and searching research I have known. As a fellow Canmoron, she took to small-town living in her cosmopolitan way—flaneuring our five shop-lined streets, braving the local book club, discovering unlikely art galleries in foothill hamlets, and cooking up exquisite menus for our well-imbibed dinner parties. And though she was a dedicated Modernist, she seemed most at home as a Victorian. In Victoria, with her beloved “boys,” she cultivated a writing life, which included a dream-study overlooking a rock garden of Garry Oaks and a not-so-distant ocean. She wrote many of her memoirs here, and thrived. In full control of her voice, at the peak of her powers, she completed her life – and leaves it to regale her readers.
Stephen, my heart goes to you, Jo-Ann’s most loving, most steadfastly caring life-partner.
Dear Stephen and all you others who loved Jo-Ann, So many people have praised her as a mentor. I felt, again and again, how strange it was to learn so much from someone who when I first met her struck me as so young. The other Memoir Club members won’t be insulted or surprised to hear me say it was Jo-Ann’s response I cared about most. I think we all did. We’ve been privileged. My sorrow and love to those who were closer and have lost more. Isobel
I cannot imagine what words might comfort you and yours, Stephen. Margaret and I are saddened to learn that Jo-Ann has departed. The news brought to mind three ways in which she was vital for me. First, her views and department talks importantly made feminism accessible to male colleagues. Secondly, I think all Broadus Lecturers will remember which departmental chair chaired their talks. For me, it was Jo-Ann. I recall warmly her gracious handling of that office, as with much greater duties, and, as others have written, her sterling quality of intently listening. Thirdly, a few years later and still as chair of English, Jo-Ann again shone brightly in consoling Margaret when heart attacks set me back. She knew just what to say, and she was kind to me as I convalesced my way back into the saddle. Once I was back, she asked if I planned to stay – terrific sense of humour. In retirement years, I have not known you and her, but I was moved when I read her writing when it appeared in the LRC and Globe and Mail: like Munro’s, Jo-Ann’s is observant, incisive, and ultimately good-hearted. It felt like a visit from her to read her. Love, Ian and Margaret
Dear Stephen,
Jo-Ann was part of the committee that hired me at the U of A. I remember how attracted I was to her understated but full presence. I always felt there was a monumental person there. Like someone else says here, I wish I had had the chance to know her better. My sincere condolences to you and your family.
Brilliant Jo-Ann with her wry wit and insight leaves the remarkable legacy of a life well-lived. As her beautiful obituary expresses, she was an extraordinary woman. We were in graduate school together and both moved West to become colleagues at UofA when we graduated. In the course of her long illness, her courage and determination shaped our conversations and are made manifest in her forthcoming memoir A Life In Pieces. She is gone too soon but I will treasure her words as I do her memory. My condolences to Stephen and Allie and to all who loved her.
Dear Stephen,
Though Jo-Ann’s intellectual acumen demanded respect from the moment one met her, not every colleague, however talented, continues to inspire increasing admiration as a human being and writer as well as fellow academic. Jo-Ann did. I will enjoy her literary company and look forward to helping carry her spirit ahead when her astonishing accomplishment of A Life In Pieces appears later this year.
To you, and to Jo-Ann’s dearest ones, my heartfelt condolences on your loss.
Chris Wiesenthal
I wish I had known her better. I sensed that she was a kind of curious gem.
Stephen, my heart goes out to you at the loss of your brilliant, witty, kind wife. I know there are no words, but we try anyway.