Joanna Innes, 64, passed away peacefully at her home in Chilliwack, British Columbia, on December 3, 2025, at 1:45 p.m., surrounded by her four sons and four grandchildren. Her gentle departure ended a brave ten-month journey with stage 4 small cell lung cancer, a fight she faced with the same quiet strength that defined her entire life.
Born in Abbotsford and raised on a dairy farm in the Fraser Valley, Joanna trained as a licensed practical nurse and spent nearly four decades caring for patients at Chilliwack General Hospital and later in palliative home care. Colleagues remember her as the nurse who always had time for one more story, one more hand to hold, and an extra cookie tucked in her pocket for frightened children.
Joanna raised her sons as a single mother after losing her husband to a trucking accident when the boys were young. She worked night shifts so she could be home for breakfast, coached soccer on weekends, and never missed a parent-teacher night, building a home filled with laughter, homemade perogies, and the rule that “we figure it out together.”
A devoted grandmother known simply as “Nana,” she kept a toy box by the front door and a swing on the big maple tree. Sunday dinners at her table were legendary, with grandchildren taking turns sitting on the special stool beside her while she stirred gravy and listened to every detail of their week.
Even after her diagnosis in February 2025, Joanna continued gardening, canning peaches, and knitting tiny hats for the hospital’s preemie unit until her hands no longer allowed. She greeted each treatment day with a smile for the nurses and insisted on driving herself to appointments “so the boys wouldn’t worry.”
A private family service will be held December 12, 2025, followed by a public celebration of life at Evergreen Hall in Chilliwack on December 14. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Chilliwack Hospice Society or the BC Cancer Agency, places that wrapped Joanna in care and kindness during her final months.