KOLARI MacKnight, Susanne

Janu­ary 10, 1943 – July 19, 2026

Susanne Mack­night Kolari, 83, of Elliot Lake, Ontario, passed away peace­fully on July 19, 2026, after a short battle with can­cer, and sur­roun­ded by her fam­ily: hus­band Roger Kolari, and daugh­ters Kelly-ann Mack­night (Jamie Lar­kin) and Kari Mack­night Dear­born (Paul Dear­born).

She was born on Janu­ary 10th, 1943, in Lind­say, Ontario. Eld­est daugh­ter of par­ents Wil­bert New­ton Jam­ieson (19121982) and Olivia Marion Jam­ieson (nee Skitch, 1914-1990]. Cher­ished grand­mother to Ben­jamin and Skye Kavcic, and great-grand­mother to Kali­lah. Beloved sis­ter of Mar­ilyn “Mar­ney” Gar­wah. Lov­ing aunt to Chris Mack­night, Nat­alie Gar­wah, Rick Mack­night (1973-2017) and Jen­nifer Mack­night, and their chil­dren. Susanne grew up in Lind­say, mov­ing to nearby Peter­bor­ough to attend the Peter­bor­ough Civic Hos­pital School of Nurs­ing. She became a Registered Nurse in 1964, train­ing at both Whitby Psych and the Hos­pital for Sick Chil­dren in Toronto dur­ing her school­ing, before mov­ing to Hailey­bury for her first job.

After stints in Wawa, and Chi­bou­gamau and Hud­son in Que­bec, Susanne settled with her first hus­band and baby daugh­ter Kelly-ann, in Elliot Lake, in 1970. Iden­ti­fied as a leader early on, Susanne was pro­moted first to super­visor, then to head nurse.

Her younger daugh­ter Kari made her a patient at St Joe’s for the first time, in 1973. While man­aging two small chil­dren, she pur­sued her Nurs­ing degree at Ryer­son via dis­tance edu­ca­tion, also cer­ti­fy­ing to be a Flight Nurse for patient air trans­ports to both Sud­bury and Toronto. She even­tu­ally man­aged the pedi­at­ric, obstet­rics, and long-term care depart­ments at St Joe’s, retir­ing in 1998 after a nearly 30-year career. She was recog­nized for her high stand­ards and for her devo­tion to train­ing the next gen­er­a­tions of carers.

Susanne loved garden­ing, golf­ing, curl­ing, and relax­ing on Man­it­oulin Island or Île d’orléans or PEI with Roger in their trailer. She was an avid volun­teer over the years, espe­cially in swim­ming. For years she trav­elled as a top swim­ming offi­cial and to the girls’ meets as well. She offi­ci­ated at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Vic­toria in 1994 – it was a real high­light for her to par­ti­cip­ate at the inter­na­tional level.

She enjoyed trav­el­ling and tak­ing in all the exper­i­ences life had to offer, includ­ing dream trips to Europe to see Kari while she was a Rotary exchange stu­dent, on cruises around the Carib­bean, to New York to see Bar­bra Streis­and in con­cert, and to Scot­land with her daugh­ters and grand­daugh­ter to retrace her fam­ily’s life there.

The fam­ily would like to thank the staff of both the North­east Can­cer Centre in Sud­bury and St. Joseph’s Gen­eral Hos­pital in Elliot Lake. The doc­tors, nurses, and PSWS cared for Susanne with ten­der­ness, com­pas­sion, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism – pre­cisely the kind of care she showed her patients over her many years as a nurse.

In lieu of flowers, dona­tions can made to St Joseph’s Found­a­tion Elliot Lake, and memor­ies can be shared via the Park Lawn web­site.

Per Susanne’s wishes, there will be no formal ser­vice. She’d like to be remembered and acknow­ledged as a hard­work­ing, lov­ing mother, grand­mother, and wife, a loyal friend, and an esteemed, respec­ted col­league.