Her children are very sad to announce that Lillias has died, at Lions Gate Hospital, North Vancouver, on August 5, 2023. Lillias was the dearly loved eldest child of Andrew and Elizabeth Penman of Edinburgh, Scotland.
With her brother Walter and sister Margaret she grew up in a loving extended family and attended the Mary Erskine School and Edinburgh University. Lillias qualified in medicine in 1948 and married fellow physician Francis Beale in 1950. In May 1959, Lillias and daughters Elizabeth, Alison and Lesley joined Francis in Toronto where he had begun work as a radiation oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Son John and youngest daughter Jean were born in Toronto while Lillias worked part-time in public health and volunteered in her children’s schools and community associations. Following her divorce, Lillias raised her younger children, studied epidemiology at McMaster University and resumed a full-time career. She worked for the Addiction Research Foundation, the Ontario Ministries of Health and Community and Social Services, and the Toronto Grace Hospital. Lillias was subsequently regional medical officer for Ontario for Veterans Affairs Canada and senior clinical advisor to the Canadian Pension Commission. She also volunteered at the Art Gallery of Ontario and with St. John Ambulance.
Lillias retired in 1995 and moved to Vancouver where two of her daughters lived. From her apartment overlooking English Bay and Stanley Park Lillias enjoyed many years of friendships, travel and volunteering at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the VanDusen Botanical Garden. She was a fun-loving and supportive Granny to her thirteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She loved and admired her dear “outlaws”, her children’s spouses Thomas Donovan, Jeremy Sturgess, Megan Bonner and Mark Smiciklas. Lillias moved to Amica West Vancouver in 2017 and continued to make friends, travel and enjoy life.
In addition to her children and their families, Lillias leaves her sister Margaret Edington of Edinburgh, nieces and nephews and their families in the U.K. and U.S., and her treasured friends. Her children are deeply grateful to all who enriched Lillias’s life and cared for her, including their mother’s friends, the warm and professional staff of Amica West Vancouver, hematologist Dr. Leslie Zypchen, and the Emergency and Palliative care staff of Lions Gate Hospital.
We had the most wonderful mother.
Elizabeth, Alison, Lesley, John and Jean Beale.
And Lillias’s grandchildren Andrew, Kathleen, Moira, Ian, Duncan, Clea, Micajah, Caleb, Dylan, Kirsten, Alexander, Madeleine and Emily; and great-grandchildren Euan, Mae, Ezra and Avi.