Germaine Baril's Obituary
It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Germaine Muriel Baril, PhD, French professor,
world traveler, and beloved mother and grandmother, passed away on August 2nd , 2022.
Born July 21st , 1937, in the Duclos Hospital at Bonnyville, Alberta, Canada. She lived a wonderful
life over her 85 years.
She grew up in Northern Alberta on the prairie and spent summers in a lumber camp where her
father worked. Dodging bears, listening to the wolves howl in the night, and taking care of her
five siblings (Margurite, Bernice, Diane, David, and Janet) as she was the eldest, she
remembered her early childhood fondly at the lumber camp before moving to Edmonton in
1943.
In 1951, her 9 th grade year, she earned the Governor General of Canada Medal for academic
excellence. After high school, she spent two years in southern France teaching English to French
students. She loved the French Rivera especially the warmth of the Mediterranean after the
cold of the northern Alberta prairie.
She finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. There she
married Henk van Oene and bore two sons, Marc and Ian; the family immigrated to the United
States in 1967. While living in Detroit she completed her master’s degree and PhD in French at
the University of Michigan in 1978.
After her divorce from Henk, she moved back to Canada for a year teaching French at the
University of South Western Ontario. A year later, she moved to Kentucky becoming an
associate Professor of French at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. She finished
her teaching career in 2000 as an associate professor at the University of the Frazier Valley in
Abbotsford, British Columbia.
She lived in Vancouver, British Columbia for 25 years in a nice apartment, that she loved dearly,
overlooking English Bay. This gave her great joy to have such beautiful views and living in a
beautiful city near her mother and sisters.
She loved to ski, travel, and read, her three big hobbies. She traveled all over the world: France,
Italy, China, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Spain, Chile, Peru, Mexico and throughout the
United States and Canada.
She had many dear friends who shared her passions and who kept in touch with her for her
whole life.
She loved her two boys and spent the last 10 years of her life living with them.
She is survived by her sisters, Diane Klose and Bernice Baril, her sons Marc van Oene (married
to Carla) and Ian van Oene (married to Stacy) her seven grandchildren, Alexander, Nicholas,
Robert, and Rebecca van Oene, Muriel, Aaron, and Martha van Oene, and three great
grandchildren, Jackson, Odin and Cameron van Oene. Her ashes are interred at Kaysville
Cemetery, Kaysville, Utah.
What’s your fondest memory of Germaine?
What’s a lesson you learned from Germaine?
Share a story where Germaine's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Germaine you’ll never forget.
How did Germaine make you smile?