MacKENZIE - Donalda Margaret (nee Gillis) Died on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at Lady Minto Hospital, Salt Spring Island. Donnie was born on July 11, 1929, at Port Alberni, B.C., to Warren and Margaret Gillis (nee Forster). The family lived on Vancouver Island before settling in 1938 in Surrey, where both Warren and Margaret had been born. Donnie attended South Westminster Elementary School and Queen Elizabeth Secondary School. She was always an excellent student, shone in school dramatic presentations, and in her final year was elected student council president, the first girl to hold the post. She then attended U.B.C. and Provincial Normal School. Her first teaching position took her to a one-room school in Lund, B.C., where she met and fell in love with George MacKenzie. They were married in 1951, and embarked on the adventures of a lifetime together. George's work in the forest industry took them to a number of B.C. locations: Port McNeill, Surrey, Penticton, Merritt, Greenwood, Burns Lake, Kitimat and Prince George. Donnie raised the family, taught periodically and corresponded prodigiously. After George's retirement, they lived briefly in Greenwood, but following his early death in 1988 she lived in Surrey and Abbotsford. In 1998 she moved to Salt Spring Island to share her life with Ray Hill, whom she had known since Normal School days, and who with his wife Beth had remained a lifelong friend. Donnie and Ray were keenly interested in current events, both local and global, and enjoyed a mutual pleasure in social events on Salt Spring. Both had experienced declining health in recent months, and Ray's death on May 28 preceded hers by only a few weeks. Donnie is survived by her sons Stewart (Colleen), Neil (Mary Beth), and Andy (Cathy), and her daughter Leith Ridley, and their families. She is also survived by her sister, Joan Parolin (Joe), and brother Ken Gillis. A celebration of Donnie's life will be held at First Memorial, 14835 Fraser Highway, Surrey, at 2:00pm on August 15, 2009. If anyone so wishes, contributions in Donnie's memory to Lady Minto Hospital Foundation (135 Crofton Road, Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 1T1) would be accepted with gratitude, in lieu of flowers.