Born during the middle of the Second World War, Stella Dunn knew adversity and instability right from the beginning. Sent away to boarding school to have a "disciplined upbringing" at only 3 years old, Stella suffered lifelong trauma from being abandoned by her mother at so young an age. But it shaped her into an independent woman early on.
Stella's father worked as an accountant for a British corporation. As a result of the Communist revolution and subsequent crackdown on Western companies, the family was forced to flee to Hong Kong in 1953. Work and money were both scarce for the family. Stella encountered another trauma in 1957 when her mother committed suicide.
Stella became a mother figure to her three younger siblings. Although her maternal instincts were developed at an early age, it also meant she did not have time to suffer fools gladly. Bluntness and expediency were not only a coping mechanism, but a way to run an efficient family.
On the eve of her high school matriculation exams, Stella contracted tuberculosis and was confined to bed. As such, she could not go to university; instead, she took a clerical position with the Canadian High Commission.
Stella married Baysun Dunn in 1971, and they decided to immigrate to Canada. They arrived in Toronto in 1973, where Baysun eventually found employment as an engineer with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
Stella's first child, a daughter, was stillborn, and Stella was devastated. In 1978, she prematurely gave birth to a boy with a collapsed lung, Julian. At the time, Stella was not religious, but swore that if the child survived in good health, she would convert to Catholicism. Julian did survive and she made good on her word, becoming a devout Roman Catholic.
In 1988, Baysun took a position with AECL in Chalk River, Ont. The move to a small town was a huge change for Stella, who had been a lifelong city dweller. Unable to find work, she took courses in photography, drawing and painting. In later years she volunteered with the Deep River Hospital Auxiliary in their thrift store. Having come from such hardship in her early years, she believed in wasting nothing.
The diagnosis of terminal cancer last fall was a shock. Nevertheless, Stella handled the remaining months of her life with immense practicality. She provided family members with a detailed list of requirements for the end of her life, specifying the exact readings and hymns to be sung during her funeral mass, selecting the contents of her mausoleum niche and even picking out a crematorial outfit - of cotton, since it would, in her words, be better for the environment. In this way, Stella approached death with the same unflappable personality and plainspokenness that characterized her life.
Julian Dunn is Stella's son.