In Memoriam: Dr. Rosalyn Ing

Photo courtesy of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society

It is with immense sadness that we share the news of the passing of Dr. Rosalyn Ing, a very remarkable educator and wife of our former Vice President, Lt. Col. George Ing. 

An Elder of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Rosalyn was a leader in social justice and education for Indigenous people in Canada. She served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (1957-1960), where she met George. She left the Air Force after they got married so as to focus on her family. Their marriage of sixty years, celebrated earlier this year, was a testimony to the resilient bond between two suffering peoples in Canada: Indigenous and Chinese. At age forty-eight, Rosalyn started her own academic journey when her children were grown up, and eventually earned three successive degrees! As a Residential School survivor and a researcher on intergenerational trauma, Dr. Rosalyn Ing was able to effect positive change and push for reconciliation for this dark chapter in Canadian history. She has been a beacon and inspiration to many Indigenous youth and women-of-colour. Her life story will be one of these Pacific Canada stories which have to be documented and shared widely to generate a deeper and more inclusive understanding of Canada.