Performing Medicine
In 1991, Mary Rockwood Lane, a nurse friend, and I founded Arts in Medicine (AIM) at Shands Hospital, University of
Dorothy Lander, co-founder of HARP Publishing: The People’s Press, was devastated to learn of the death of her long-time friend, Jeannie Mackay, on August 23, 2025. As a deeply passionate thespian and humanitarian her entire life, Jeannie Mackay personified the mission of HARP, dedicating her enormous talents and sharp wit to support the healing arts for health equity. Indeed, their friendship was so deep, impactful, and lasting, that Jeannie’s executor asked Dorothy Lander to compose her obituary and eulogy. And so, drawing on their five-decade friendship. which began in the 1970s at St. Francis Xavier University, when Jeannie (then Smith) was Director of Theatre Antigonish, Dorothy rose to this enormous challenge.
Kindly find Dorothy’s eulogy—a dedication to one of her dearest chums, Jeannie Mackay— below.
Jeannie Mackay chose a life as dramatic as the theatrical productions in which she performed and directed. Gandalf’s words in The Hobbit, which Jeannie directed in Theatre Antigonish in 1978, serve as an epigram for her life:
Jeannie was a fierce disability-rights advocate for her younger sisters who predeceased her, Annie in 2023, and Edith in July 2025. Annie lived with Cerebral Palsy and Edith entered the Nova Scotia provincial care system in 1966. Jeannie kept the darkness at bay for her sisters as children and adults.
Jeannie’s five-decade friendship with Dorothy Lander began in the 1970s at St. Francis Xavier University. Jeannie drew Dorothy’s attention to her family connection to the Antigonish Movement and Fr. Moses Coady through her paternal grandfather Alexander Doull Mackay when Dorothy was collecting photos for her co-authored book The People’s Photo Album: A Pictorial Genealogy of the Antigonish Movement, the first publication of HARP The People’s Press in 2018. Jeannie contributed photos and a handwritten letter to the project. In the 1940s in the early days of the Movement, Alexander Mackay, a farmer in Pictou County, and a friend of Fr. Moses Coady, supplied fertilizer to farming cooperatives. He was also a founding member of Farmers Mutual Insurance in Pictou. Jeannie’s photo contributions and letter also illuminate the planks of the Antigonish Movement—cooperation and adult education—offered through Theatre Antigonish.
After graduating with a BSc in Geology from Dalhousie University, Jeannie embarked on a teaching career at F. H. MacDonald Academy, Sutherland’s River, Nova Scotia, where her mother was also a teacher, But theatre was always in her sights; she made the trek from Pictou to take on lead roles in Theatre Antigonish (TA), beginning in its inaugural year 1975 by playing Lady Anne in Richard III.
Jeannie’s passing evoked an outpouring of TA memories that uncover her enduring impact. Some of the stories are from cast and crew who were children in the 1970s.
“This is devastating news indeed. I had the privilege as a very young boy to work with Theatre Antigonish founder James Colbeck, followed by the beautiful, talented and giving Jeannie Smith in the 1970’s. Jeannie was the first adult to reach out to shake my hand when we first met, and I never forgot it. I took it as a great sign of respect. It made me feel very adult. It’s amazing what you remember and the impressions people leave you when you were young. Thank you, Jeannie, for being a role model for me and many others and having a very positive influence on my life.”
– Andrew Murray. Antigonish Town Councillor.
“Oh Jeannie… she was such a beautiful person. I remember as a small kid in one of her theatre productions, being invited to sit and talk to her for an hour in her office about dwarves and fairies and wonderful imaginative things… a shining light indeed.
Dorothy, there I am with my beard (second from left sitting,The Hobbit, 1978).”
– Lynn O’Donnell, Fund Development Executive, Coady Institute.
“Oh Dorothy, this is incredibly sad news. Too soon for this loss.
I can draw a direct line between Jeannie, me and Theatre Antigonish. If it weren’t for her, I never would have been a part of TA and the wider StFX community. During the full run of Fiddler on the Roof, starting with rehearsals and our eventual performances in 1979, Jeannie ferried me back and forth between New Glasgow and Antigonish so that I could be a part of the show. She was a mere 29 years old at the time and had accomplished so much as an actor and director.
Coincidentally, I was thinking of Jeannie this weekend as my husband and I saw two shows at the Shaw Festival. Jeannie had performed in Dear Liar at TA which dramatized a correspondence between GBS and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She was luminescent in that role.
This weekend, John and I had a birthday dinner with my long-time friend Brian Stevens and his partner Martin. If not for Jeannie, Brian and I would not have been friends for 46 years.
My condolences to Jeannie’s family and friends on their loss.”
– Connie Wrigley-Thomas. Founder, Essentient Association Management. Co-Founder, Mentorship Rocket.
“I first met Jeannie when she was directing a local production of Fiddler on the Roof. Someone had told her that I am Jewish and well informed on the traditions referenced in Fiddler. I agreed enthusiastically and had a great time answering the questions from the cast, which was largely composed of young people of Scottish Catholic backgrounds who had never met a Jew and had no idea of Judaism. The
role of Tevye was played by Buddy Doucette, a professional actor and teacher who was well-informed and wonderful in the role.
I also was fortunate to play in the pit-band for a production of “My Fair Lady”, in which Jeannie played Eliza. She was BRILLIANT and I worked very hard in the pit, as the music is essentially continuous for a very long play.”
– Michael Steinitz, Physics Professor. Founder, The Performing Arts Series, StFX. Co-Founder, Debut Atlantic.
“I was her Bilbo Baggins and I love that woman for all she opened up for me!”
– Pam Calabrese-MacLean. Library Assistant, StFX (Retired).
“Sorry to hear this, Dorothy. Condolences to you and her family and many friends. I remember her as a dynamic presence during her last year at Theatre Antigonish and her occasional visits over the years. She was a bright light indeed.”
– Addy Doucette, Director of Theatre Antigonish after Jeannie. Addy’s husband Buddy Doucette played “Tevye” in Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Jeannie.
“So very sad to hear this, Dorothy. She was a force & a huge talent. May her memory be a blessing.”
– Dale McCormick, Theatre Antigonish Actor.
“I proposed to Jeannie two extra lines in Fiddler that I felt helped the drama. She agreed and kept them in! Cheeky Monkey was I, and generous Director was she.”
— Kevin A. MacDonald, Litigation Practice Manager and Trial Lawyer.
Jeannie moved to Toronto in 1980, pursuing her passion for theatre, performing and working first for Limelight Dinner Theatre and then The Second City improv stage. A few years later, her work life morphed into an innovative and independent compassionate listening practice, in which she added a unique theatrical layer to her extensive training in neurolinguistic programming (NLP), reflexology, and holographic re-patterning. In 2021, she moved her practice to Mexico, which she expanded while continuing online with her Ontario clients via Skype, Facetime and WhatsApp.
Her executor Victoria Mead for whom she was “Aunty Jeannie” from age five adds this tribute:
Through Jeannie’s time and work spent in Toronto, she helped countless people and in doing so, also influenced a younger generation in such a positive way. In the words of poet Galway Kinnell: “Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” Jeannie’s work was just that, profound in its purpose and effect. She was “Aunty Jeannie” to so many and that legacy is more than many can hope for. Her love and light for others was unmatched and will continue to shine in so many of our lives for years to come.
Jeannie leaves us her soothing voice legacy in her collection Stories to Heal the Heart produced as a CD series and virtually. She tells thirty-nine stories of true faithful committed love encountering racial, social or sacred barriers. Each story tells why two lovers cannot be together—and cannot be apart.
These stories, like Jeannie’s life story, manifest from “collective unconsciousness” and underpin her invitation to all who knew her to become grounded in compassion for the journeys of others and of ourselves.
Take comfort from this passage from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, that Jeannie’s life is now “rounded with a sleep.”
In 1991, Mary Rockwood Lane, a nurse friend, and I founded Arts in Medicine (AIM) at Shands Hospital, University of
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