Joan Sinclair.Courtesy of family
Joan Sinclair: Mother. Grandmother. Feminist. Crossword lover. Born May 24, 1925, in Hamilton; died Oct. 16, 2025, in Waterdown, Ont., of natural causes; aged 100.
Joan Newell grew up in a working-class family in east end Hamilton in the 1920s and spent her teenage years in the Great Depression, which led to a lifetime of careful saving.
She was the first young woman from her neighbourhood to attend university and graduated from McMaster with an Arts and Science degree in 1947. While at McMaster, she met Bob Sinclair in the university library. Bob noticed her first but waited until she stood up before approaching (at 5-foot-4 he didn’t want to date anyone taller than him). At 5-foot-2, Joan was just right.
When the couple married in 1949, Joan decided to move the service from an Anglican to a United church. The Anglican vows at the time noted she was to “honour and obey her husband,” which Joan would not tolerate.
Joan and Bob settled in Dundas, Ont., and she worked at Appleford Paper Products, despite the managers frowning on married women working. Their first child, Doug, was born in 1955, and Lawrence a few years later. Soon the house felt too small, so the family moved to a new home in Aldershot, a suburb of Burlington. The family welcomed two more children, Brad and Lianne.
Joan was always pragmatic and never shielded her children from reality. In the 1960s as the Cold War heated up and the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed real, families were encouraged to build bomb shelters in the backyard. Doug, her oldest son, thought it would be a great place to play, but Joan promptly shut down the idea, stating that she would not want to be alive in a postapocalyptic world.
As far as job advice, Joan’s best words were: “Just remember, in whatever career you have, you can always be replaced.” Doug never forgot that sage advice and used it often while mentoring leaders in his own career.
After seeing off her fourth child to school in Burlington, Joan went back to work driving her 1973 blue Mustang for the Carpenters Union in Hamilton. She always had a ham sandwich in her purse, in case an adventure kept her out over mealtimes. She called them “mother’s adventures” – everything from taking wrong turns, losing track of time while shopping or even escaping a burning tour bus on a trip to Germany.
Joan was a member of the University Women’s Club and a volunteer for Information Burlington, providing community advice well before the internet made that easier.
Joan was also an avid bridge player and crossword solver well into her 80s. Her morning routine was sipping black coffee and studying the crossword on her clipboard.
Bob and Joan built a cottage in Southampton near Lake Huron in 1964. It was a special place for the family. When everyone else was trying to get a tan without sunscreen, Joan was always covered up (likely the reason for her lifelong flawless complexion). She sat on the beach supervising her sons’ roughhousing in the water. Joan did not swim and when asked what she would have done if one of them got into trouble, she said without hesitation, “I would have walked to the water’s edge, the water would have parted and I would have walked in and rescued you boys.”
Joan’s greatest joy was her 10 grandchildren. Visits to Grandma and Grandpa’s home in Burlington meant homemade cookies, perfectly made tuna sandwiches and watching movies. There was a cardboard playhouse in the basement, which was excellent for their vivid imaginations.
When Bob had to go into long-term care in 2012, Joan drove to visit him daily. He was the love of her life and died at the age of 93 in 2015.
As Joan moved into a retirement home and then nursing home at the age of 97, visits with Grandma became quieter. Time was spent looking through photos, watching figure skating and drinking coffee.
In her last few years, Joan’s world got smaller but she was always happy to see her family, which now included five great-grandchildren. Her smile was always warm and her goodbye hugs lasted longer with each visit.
Doug Sinclair is Joan’s son; Anna Sinclair is her granddaughter.
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