THE ADVOCATE 429
VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
many grandchildren. Dad was predeceased by his parents Alfred and Rosalyn
Watts, his brother Rick and his sister Pat.
David Watts.
Following in the legal tradition of the family (including grandfather
Alfred Watts, father Peter and uncle Rick, all lawyers),
David is a B.C. notary as well as Vice President of the Society of
Notaries Public of British Columbia and Chair of the Board of Governors of
the Notary Foundation of British Columbia.
The Honourable Patricia Mathilda Proudfoot
The Honourable Patricia Mathilda Proudfoot, nicknamed
MJP (Madam Justice Proudfoot) by her law
clerks, was a trailblazer, role model and mentor for
women lawyers and judges, setting an example of
how women lawyers and judges should be treated.
She died on October 9, 2019, age 91, sitting at home
in her favourite chair watching a baseball game (not
her beloved Blue Jays, though, as they did not make
the playoffs).
MJP received many honours, the last being a special sitting of the courts
at the Law Courts in Vancouver on November 25, 2019. Perhaps much more
important than her legal and judicial career and achievements, she was a
good friend and mentor to many, an engaged and vibrant person enjoying
her family and many friends to the end. She is deeply missed.
MJP was born Patricia Mathilda Fahlman on March 13, 1928, on the family
farm in Kronau, Saskatchewan, the youngest of ten children (eight sisters
and one brother), all delivered by her paternal grandmother. On her
birth certificate, the place of her birth is a prairie classic: RR2, Section 4,
Kronau, Saskatchewan. In October 1933 the family moved to a fruit farm in
Rutland, B.C., now part of Kelowna.
In her eulogy, her great-niece, Jennifer Schell, said:
Growing up, the Fahlman sisters made their own bedsheets with flour
sacks and stuffed their mattresses with fresh hay. They would fight over