ATHABASCA — Ninety-eight-year-old community advocate, quilter, and former columnist for Town and Country who penned thoughtful pieces on topics still-relevant today, Ann Stiles has passed away.
Stiles’s last day was March 29, 2025, coming close to 100 hundreds years after her birth on March 16, 1927. Raised on a family farm east of Colinton in what was then known as the Atlanta District, Stiles was described in her online obituary as a tomboy in childhood and is remembered as an active community member in her adult years.
Her first profession was as a teacher; after attending one year of school herself, an 18-year-old Stiles taught in a one-room schoolhouse north of the river. At the age of 21 she met her would-be husband, Len, and in the years that followed the couple had children and moved between Smith, Chisholm and Athabasca.
According to old newspaper clippings from the Athabasca Archives, Stiles owned a craft store in town from 1973 to 1978, and took up the art of quilting four years after closing the doors. Stiles made quilts for family, friends, and other locals, and she put her skills on full display when she collaborated with others to create three pieces depicting the history of Athabasca Landing. One of the three Centennial quilts can be seen in the Athabasca Archives.
Her love of history could also be gleaned from her Whispers from the Hills column that appeared in the Town and Country inserts inside the Athabasca Advocate and other nearby newspapers from 1997 to 2002, often in contrast with the views expressed in Les Dunford’s Country Roads or Brian Bachynski’s From the Right series.
Stiles’s submissions included from a poetic tribute to Athabasca’s pioneers, and her first piece, which appeared in the June 7, 1997 edition of Town and Country, touched on the importance of remembering Canadian history in order to hold our own governments accountable, and emphasized creating more in-country connections and lessening reliance on our neighbours to the south.
In other columns, she touched on the shift towards the instant gratification of the stock market as a new form of gambling, the subsidization of upper-class failure and the criminalization of lower-class failure as a “tax on the stupid.”
Stiles was commenting on issues such as the intersection of mental health and homelessness, social stigma and the destructive exploitation of big pharmaceutical companies as early as 1997, and was an advocate against the privatization of Canada’s fresh water resources in 2001.
In 1996, Stiles was named a CFRN Radio Great Albertan after being nominated by the Athabasca & District Chamber of Commerce for her community-based advocacy efforts, which saw her dedicate time to Adult Basic Literacy, the Good Samaritan Mission, and more.
“Few know that she maintains a flower garden at the river’s edge town park, or that she helps keep up parts of the Muskeg Trail,” wrote Joan Sherman, then-president of the Friends of Athabasca Environmental Association.
“If a quiet, unassuming and selfless dedication of one’s time and energy for the community is one of tests to earn the title of ‘great,’ then Mrs. Ann Stiles richly deserves to be one,” wrote a Charles and Rita Sequeria.
— With files from the Athabasca Archives
