We’re back from Edmonton after an emotional but amazing 4 days spent laying our Mom to Rest beside Dad. Of course the trip was sad, but also a time to reunite many in our very large family and celebrate and reminisce.

My siblings and their families are a gift. At any point during the weekend there were some 30 people from our family gathered at my sister’s place in St. Albert. The house can handle it. Pretty loud but pretty special.

We flew Porter from YOW to YEG non-stop return. Which was nice. It was another good trip but the luggage retrieval was a joke in Ottawa. It took over an hour to get our bags while waiting at the kiosk. Ridiculous. But that was really the only hiccup. Well, we waited way too long to get the rental car in Edmonton too but I expected many more travel woes.

My Mom wanted a Catholic Funeral mass which was held at St. Edmond’s Parish. We attended mass and many weddings and my Dad’s funeral there. Hasn’t changed a bit.

The internment was conducted at Holy Cross Cemetery where our Dad and brother Ted are resting. Now Mom has joined.

I was tasked with the Eulogy and it appears below with some images.

Joyce Marie Kingsbury Randolf
Sept 12, 1931-July 5, 2026
Good morning.
Welcome, everyone. It’s so nice to see so many familiar faces. Joyce would have loved this, and so does our family. Thank you all for being here.
Like many of you, I’ve spent the last few days thinking about Mom and all the memories she gave us. I quickly realized something impossible: you simply can’t tell the story of 94 wonderful years in one speech. That would take an autobiography…or at least a Netflix series. So today I’ll just share some of the moments that made Joyce…Mom.

Joyce was a deeply loving Christian woman…well…mostly. The only times she seemed to lose her way was watching sports on TV. Many words used were unexpected from a church-going nurse. Fortunately, she believed confession came with unlimited mulligans. And according to Mom, God Himself cheers for the Oilers and the Elks.
That said, how would you like to be a referee in heaven right now?

Joyce was born and raised in the 1930s. She didn’t talk a lot about her early years with us, but looking back, it was a terrible time here on planet Earth.
During the “Dirty 1930s”, Canada faced its most severe economic and social crisis. Driven by a heavy reliance on raw material exports that ended with tariffs—sound familiar? —and an environmental catastrophe in the Prairies, the Dust Bowl, our economy collapsed. This triggered widespread unemployment and dramatically altered the way of life. There was no unemployment insurance, and many Canadians relied on bread and soup lines.
Mom never talked much about it, partly because I’m sure she didn’t remember much of it, and partly because she was shielded from some of it.

Our grandfather Edward, who died young and never got to know us, relied on his skills as a chef and was able to work at The Hotel Quinte kitchen in Belleville and later at Hotel Dieu to get through it all to raise and support his family.
But to be sure, her upbringing had an enormous influence on the woman she became.
When World War II broke out, things changed dramatically, of course, and the economy boomed like never before. Times were much better and improving, but I think it became engrained in Mom’s DNA, even at a young age, to live and survive with less—or with very little at all.
Now that we’re older, it explains so much to us kids about the way she was while we were growing up. It also speaks volumes about her parents, who were able to make it all work, doing the best they could with what they had.
It all makes sense now. Even if some of the rules and idiosyncrasies seemed weird at the time, they were all foundational to her.
A similar upbringing was happening at the same time in our dad’s household in Kingston, although he lived with nine siblings, our mom had only one sister, Marge.
What is true, no doubt, is that regardless of their geographically separated childhoods, their values were forming together in the same spirit. And should they be destined to meet, it would be a match made in heaven.
Fortunately for all of us, that meeting came after Joyce trained to become a registered nurse at Hotel Dieu in Kingston. Dad was back from Korea, and although there is some selective memory here, Mom told me in an interview that she and Dad met on a blind date—with different people. She fell for him, and the rest is history.

There was also some fun discussion among us kids about the wedding day and Deb’s birthday. But we established that all was in order.
Alberta’s history changed with the discovery of oil at Leduc.
Things were booming out there, to say the least. After Mom and Dad wed, they decided to leave it all behind in Ontario and start fresh in this new economy.
It was very difficult to make that decision. They would both be very lonely out there, missing their families. But it was brave. It taught us to try new things in our own lives. Maybe that’s why they got right to starting a family, so they would have something to do. They were good at making babies.
Mom’s childhood influences shaped their lives in Alberta too. Many of her tenets, beliefs, and instincts played a big role in our upbringing. And because Mom and Dad were so aligned, they were a great team.

A lot of my shared memories today are from before the Kingsbury family really started to grow, when Rick Blackwell came into our lives and began the long and very successful expansion plan that is still operating at high capacity to this very day.

Mom was intolerant about wasting food. We were to finish our plates. That wasn’t a problem in our house. We were six hungry kids.
She ate very slowly, to enjoy her food and savour it. She was always the last at the table, with a clean plate. Then she’d have her tea to digest.
She always wanted the meat cut thinly and the food portions dished equally, because it “had to feed eight people”.
She and Dad would grocery shop on Saturday morning at Safeway, when the food was unbagged and put away, including the 12 loaves of white bread that go down to the freezer, Mom was always adamant when we grabbed for the Sugar Pops: “Don’t eat that—I just bought it.” She hid treats knowing we’d gobble them up as soon as possible. Make no mistake, she wanted us to enjoy things, just not to be gluttonous or wasteful. And we always found the stash.
There really was a conservation instinct guiding her. I believe it came from her upbringing.

Mom was a great seamstress and loved sewing. She often made clothes for us kids: dresses and pantsuits for the girls, and pants for Ted, Mike, and me.
Imagine how self-confident we had to be to wear homemade clothing to school. And imagine how skilful and confident she was, knowing the risks for us, but always delivering quality goods at a quarter of the price at Woodward’s. We didn’t always have to have a coat of many colours, but we certainly didn’t shop lavishly. We went to Simpsons-Sears and Army & Navy—never The Bay or Eaton’s, too expensive. $1.49 Day at Woodward’s was a big one in our house. So was the arrival of the Sears catalogue. And the Wish Book—don’t get us started. Torn to shreds by December.
She made school costumes. One time, using red crepe paper, she sewed a toy soldier vest for me to wear in a Christmas play.
She made Klondike costumes for us so that we could go to the Klondike Days exposition on Kids’ Day, because admission was free if we were dressed up. We’d get the passes in our final report cards, and Mom and Dad would give us each five dollars for passing, to be used at the fairgrounds. It went a long way, too. It was so exciting.
Holidays were extra special in our house. Mom took them all very seriously and celebrated them well. Christmas and New Year’s were amazing. The way our house was decorated—with the trees, fake frosted windows, lights outside, nativity scene, and the famous Kingsbury Santa sleigh and reindeer on our lawn—was the best on the crescent, and all homemade. Dad did the plywood cutting and Mom did the painting.
There was no more exciting time than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our house: anticipating the arrival of Santa, presents, chocolates, candies, nuts, Japanese oranges, Life Savers, Charlie Brown books, Christmas music on the stereo, and on and on and on. This was all mom. We did not attend Midnight Mass or Christmas Day Mass, but we never missed the previous or the next Sunday service.
Easter was another special occasion—again, note the religious association. Mom would supervise the egg decorating at the table. I don’t think we nailed the hard-boiling technique, as the yolks were always super grey and many of the shells cracked. We still had to eat them, though.
For a few years, she made these huge chocolate-covered nougat eggs for us. They had to be 3,000 calories each. We watched The Robe and The Ten Commandments, and the David and Goliath show with Pokey and Gumby. And then, of course, we all had Easter baskets with chocolate bunnies on Sunday, and the hunt for those chalky coloured eggs was on. Yuck. Those were not good. It got better when the eggs became Cadbury.
There was never a time when there wasn’t a fight for the eggs, and Mary Ann Rose or Mike didn’t end up crying because Ted found them all first. None of us liked them, but we had to fight over them.
Halloween was no different, with Mom making costumes, carving pumpkins, making our UNICEF boxes, and giving us pillowcases for trick-or-treating while she stayed home to give out candy. It seems it was always winter in Edmonton on Halloween, so she made sure she bundled us up before we went out.
Summer in our family was absolutely the best time for all of us. No school, long days, sleeping outside in the backyard, riding bikes, freedom to get into trouble, and watching Mom’s garden grow in the backyard: raspberries, peas, carrots, and potatoes. “Don’t pick that,” Mom would say.
Sunday barbecues were wonderful, and best of all was our annual family vacation. Dad didn’t have many vacation days, but summer was his hill to die on. There are literally hundreds of stories and memories we each have about summer vacation. My goodness.
The road trips and the adventures—imagine driving to Ontario to visit our Granny in Belleville. Everyone thought we were nuts.

We stayed at campgrounds after a long driving day. Some were good, others not so much. I remember we stayed at one called the Jaycee Campgrounds. It was not good, and as we drove away, Mom said, “Hey, do you know what Jaycee stands for…” You’ll have to imagine the rest, as we are in a place of worship. So funny.
The in-car stories, the singalong songs, and the absolute surrender of our normal lives: eight of us, and sometimes more, crammed into our 1963 Dodge sedan—seating for five—to live in a tent trailer for two or three weeks every summer. Wow. It was incredible. We only did one Ontario trip, but we did several to British Columbia and the Okanagan Valley. We stayed at Skaha Lake.
Mom didn’t drive. It was up to Gordie to get us there, but Mom handled all the other stuff: caterer, valet, navigator, and banker. They were quite the team.
Another quick story about Mom: one year we all wanted to stay another week because the weather had been bad, and Mom and Dad agreed. But really, we were out of money. So, we all piled into the car, drove into town, and pulled up in front of HFC—Household Finance Corporation. Mom and Dad went in, came out with a $50 cash loan, and proclaimed we were staying another week. Dad agreed because Mom agreed he’d get a box of beer out of it.
As we look back at our childhoods, it’s crazy to me that we wanted for nothing growing up. That’s what it might have felt like when Mom was growing up, too.
Mom and Dad got the travel bug in the 1970s and discovered there was a whole other world out there. No more insane trips across the country with a jam-packed car.
They started going to Hawaii and Mexico when they joined the Royal Aloha Vacation Club timeshare. That was a game changer for them. They absolutely loved it. Mom loved to travel, and they would come out east to visit and explore Canada.

Mom travelled as much as possible with Deb, Mary Ann and Rose over the last 25 years: Hawaii, Cruises, Vegas, and wherever else she could go.
All during this time, the in-laws and 15 grandkids arrived too.
Then the 17 great grandkids started to join the party.
And now, 2 great-great-grandkids.
Of course, she loved all her in-laws, they love her.
Joyce was conservative and practical, as I’ve said, but she was also a very social person.
She loved to gather, talk and party, if I’m being frank. Growing up on the crescent was a time to socialize, with many of our neighbors (not all) and I remember Mom and Dad having many parties downstairs in our wood-panelled basement. Mom and Dad were five-pin bowlers and belonged to UCTV Wednesday night league. Beverages were involved.
Once the pool went in in 1973, that was again a game changer. They transformed our backyard into an oasis with all we needed for the short but eventful summer: pool, patio, slide, diving board, lawn and garden, greenhouse, flowerbeds, and eventually a sunroom off the house, which became the gathering place for the 1980s and 1990s. The parties they hosted in that yard are legendary. No one ever had a bad time at a Kingsbury pool party. Mom was at the top of that list. The legend lives on about picnic table dancing and making breakfast for the milkman at 5am. Can’t make that up.
I strongly believe this side of her personality was what had been missing while she grew up in the bad times. She didn’t have much of that type of thing, and she obviously vowed to be here for a good time. And as it turns out, a long time.
In 2001, she married Keith Randolf. Keith brought companionship, laughter and some happiness into her life during a chapter when many people believe the biggest adventures are already behind them. He passed away in 2010.

Mom, you gave six children a wonderful childhood. You gave your grandchildren and great-grandchildren a family that is built on faith, love, hard work, laughter and kindness. You taught us that nothing should be wasted—not food, not money, not opportunities, and certainly not the time we have together.
Every Christmas, every family dinner, every camping trip, every birthday, every backyard pool party…those weren’t just events. They were the memories that built this family.
Looking around this church today, your greatest accomplishment isn’t any one thing you ever did. It’s us.
We are your legacy.
We love you.
Thank you for everything.
Rest peacefully, Mom.