Faith Slaney
1923-2017
Faith Slaney was born in Vernon, B.C., youngest of three children (Barbara, Paul Alexander, and Amy Faith). She lived her childhood and adolescent years in Proctor and Nelson, B.C., where her parents ran a general store. Her parents also enjoyed gardening and bee-keeping, and imparted to Faith a great appreciation for fabric and yarn, along with many skills for working with these materials. Fortunately for her, they also had the wisdom to see that art school might be the best option for her. So after high school, she moved to the West Coast to attend the Vancouver School of Art (VSA). And there, she discovered an entirely new world of possibilities beyond her small town origins and she never looked back. Many of her close and enduring friendships were with visual artists from those art school days. And little did she know at the time, that this would prove excellent preparation for her many years on Saltspring Island.
Faith deeply appreciated SSI’s local craftsmanship and also supported local food production at the island market. Her SSI years began with a cottage on Long Harbour in the early 1970s, then a larger Scott Point house, both edifices thoroughly renovated in collaboration with her husband Fred (married 1946), an engineer.
In 2011, she moved to Meadowbrook. There, she happily spent her final years in good company even while maintaining her own art-filled space, and relishing her walks into town and to Music and Munch on Wednesdays. Over the past decades, she thoroughly enjoyed discussions at the Dante Reading Group, as well as volunteering at the SSI Library and Lady Minto Thrift Shop. Her island friends are too many to mention here but they, and everyone she encountered on SSI, contributed to her island life well-lived. She is survived by her son Tim and daughter-in-law Holly, her daughter Frances and son-in-law Peter, as well as by her grandchildren Ben, Nick and Emma, and greatgrandchild, Nina. There will be a memorial service for her at All Saints by-the-Sea on April 7, 2017.