“Leona” Anna Reta McLean, aged 93 years, passed away peacefully on April 19th, 2021 at St Joseph’s Hospice, in the loving company of her family.
Leona was born in Virden Manitoba on March 16th, 1928 to Arthemise and Theodore Vaillant. Raised in a warm and caring family Leona was the eleventh of fifteen children. The onset of the Great Depression, coupled with crop failures, compelled the Vaillant family to move to their grandfather’s dairy farm in Murillo, Ontario when Leona was two. She and her siblings helped on the farm, which shipped milk to the Port Arthur Dairy Coop. In the winter excess milk was used to flood the rink.