It is with sadness that we share the news that longtime Bedside Singers volunteer, Suellen Guenther, died on November 13. Suellen was diagnosed with kidney cancer five years ago. Immunotherapy enabled her to live well and remain active and committed to many causes.
In September, while vacationing with childhood friends from her native United States, she was unexpectedly hospitalized and underwent surgery in Edmonton. Friends and family raised funds to cover the cost of a MedEvac to transport her back home to Victoria, where she was comforted by familiarity and loved ones during her final weeks.
“Suellen was loved by so many,” says friend Kathie Doerksen, who has been a Bedside Singer since the early days. Suellen joined the Bedside Singers shortly afterwards and quickly became invaluable part of the team.
Suellen believed in the power of music to invite conversations between patients and their families and to connect patients with parts of their past in a process of reflecting on their lifetimes. She worked hard to ensure that the Bedside Singers program continued and trained many of the newer volunteers. As a natural leader, her skills as a mentor and organizer were revered at Hospice and at the Unitarian Church where she was involved in book sales, auctions, and other fundraisers.
Suellen was a special kind of person who embodied the caring and generous values that define a successful community. “She always gave the very best of herself in everything she did,” says Kathie. “She was a firecracker.”
In 2020, Suellen received the 2020 Valued Elder Recognition Award (VERA) from the UVic Centre on Aging & Lifelong Health and the Eldercare Foundation. That year she also published the book Once Upon an Island: Hope and Hardship, Building a Log House and a Life on the North Coast of British Columbia about living off the grid with her family in the 1970s.
A Celebration of Life will be held at First Unitarian Church on 5575 W. Saanich Rd. on Saturday, January 28.