Edith Margaret Fitch

Edith Margaret Fitch was born in Red Deer, AB on October 25, 1932 to George and Madge Fitch and passed to her rest early Wednesday morning May 25, 2016 in Lacombe, AB. She had an older brother Earl and a younger brother and sister Victor and Alice. She was predeceased by her parents and Earl.

At age six she was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss in her left ear and mild to severe loss in her right. There were neither the resources nor technology to correct it, so she went about the business of life. As a child she learned to lip-read to compensate for her hearing loss.

Edith graduated from Canadian Union College High School in 1950 and then took a one-year normal course in Calgary, AB. She began teaching in a one-room school north of Rocky Mountain House, AB at age 18. Her teaching career spanned 41 years; eight in public schools in the Rocky Mountain House School Division and 33 in the Adventist education system at Burlingame, CA; Windsor, ON; Calgary, AB and the last 28 years at College Heights Christian School in Lacombe, AB. She took time off from teaching and completed a Bachelor's degree at Walla Walla University in 1965. She retired in 1993.

Edith received several honours including a Zapara Excellence in Teaching Award, and The Alumnus of the Year and Outstanding Volunteer Award, both from CUC, now Burman University. After retirement she volunteered over 20,000 hours in the Burman University archives, named in 2015 Edith Fitch Department of Archives, and several thousand hours scanning Alberta Conference documents. Among her many writings are two books on her life dealing with her deafness as well as numerous articles for the Women's Devotional books. While teaching grade 4 at College Heights Christian School she developed supplementary materials for each of the four cycles of the grades 1-4 Bible curriculum for her class. The material was later field tested and adopted by the K-12 Board of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada for use in all of the Adventist schools in Canada. The supplementary material totaled almost 800 pages.

The life of Edith Fitch was lived with deep commitment to her Lord and Saviour, conviction of her beliefs, compassion for others, generosity toward many needs, attention to detail and always a willingness to help. These are but a few of the attributes that marked her full and satisfying life. A memorial service celebrating her life will be held on Sunday, August 7 at 2:00 pm at the College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church in Lacombe, AB. The service will be broadcast live at http://livestream.com/burmanu.

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