Jean McEachran Rosadiuk, a fiery Scot who served in the Women’s Royal Navy during World War II and was known for her candor, wit, and hospitality, passed away peacefully February 5, 2025 at her home in Torrance, California with her son Kenneth and a hospice nurse in attendance. She was 98 years old.
Born Jeanie McEachran Mackay in Glasgow on May 16, 1926, she knew hardship from a young age, her early life shaped by the world wars. During World War II, with the Nazis blockading Britain, food was rationed, and her family’s weekly allowance sometimes included a few vegetables and just one egg, which usually went to her father because he needed the energy for work. Nights were often spent in air raid shelters. And yet life went on.
Jean worked from the age of 14 at a tobacconist shop and maintained a life-long strong work ethic. Her older sister had been conscripted to munitions for the war and told Jean it would be better to sign up for the Women’s Royal Navy, which she did at age 17. She was part of RNATE, the Royal Naval Artificer’s Training Establishment. While the engineers were men, the admin staff were women and were known as Wrens. They were stationed in Cornwall, England, in the ancestral home —Antony House—of Lord and Lady Carew. The family occupied the basement of the house, and the officers and Wrens lived in the rest of the house.
Jean loved the camaraderie of the Wrens, to whom she was affectionately known as Wee Mac or Mac —a nod to her five-foot, two-inch height. As her mother wanted her to return home after nearly four years away Jean declined the Wrens’ offer to reenlist and returned home to Scotland where she held various bookkeeping jobs over the next few years.
At 27, she traveled with a girlfriend by ship to Toronto to escape a broken engagement and began working for a large insurance company called Confederation Life. Her plan to stay only two years was thwarted when she met a charming man named Leo Rosadiuk at Casa Loma, a four-story dance venue where each floor was a ballroom for a different style of dance. The story goes that Jean and Leo discovered it was the eve of their birthdays—they shared a birthdate right down to the year. After dancing, Leo offered to take her home in his Chevy Bel Air, and Jean, ever tough, slung her dance shoes over her shoulder and thought to herself, “If he tries anything, I can take him.” Jean then asked Leo if he was going to ask her out for coffee. They soon married and were together for nearly fifty-four years.
The newlyweds moved to Torrance for Leo’s work as an aerospace engineer. They had two sons, Paul and Ken, and Jean worked hard as a homemaker, balancing the budget down to the last penny. A sports fanatic since childhood when her home was a short distance from Ibrox stadium where the Rangers played, she was involved with the boys’ soccer teams, coaching the coaches and attending all the games. At her neighbor Chris’ request, she co-coached a girls soccer team for a time, culminating in them winning their league championship.
The family took memorable vacations, visiting relatives in Scotland and Canada, and traveling to national parks. They hosted a steady stream of guests, and Jean was always hospitable to anyone who stayed with them and to all visitors. The boys’ friends would come to swim all summer in the family’s backyard pool. Every afternoon when it started to get cold and they were hungry, Jean would serve them tea and pastries or cookies.
She made her famous secret-recipe shortbread every Christmas and New Years, giving plates to various friends and family. At Thanksgiving, there was rotisserie turkey and at Christmas prime rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, and trifle for dessert. She stayed up until midnight every New Year’s to sing Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns.
The family often visited museums and listened to a wide variety of music on a record player—from Madame Butterfly and The Irish Rovers to Nat King Cole and Rod McKuen. And Jean loved hockey and followed the Los Angeles Kings for many years. Her favorite player was Rogie Vachon. If her team did not play well, she would let them know, screaming with the best of them.
When the boys were in high school, Jean went to work as a bookkeeper and administrative assistant with the Southbay Child Guidance Clinic, driving her ’59 Jaguar sedan to downtown Torrance each day. The staff soon adopted a new Xmas tradition as Jean dressed up as Santa Claus each year and passed out gag gifts, including poems she wrote, making playful fun of co-workers’ foibles.
Jean was strong-minded and a feminist. She was also as frank as she was sociable. If she didn’t approve of something or didn’t like you, it was likely that you knew it. She didn’t suffer fools gladly.
In her early fifties, Jean took lessons to learn to paint and painted landscapes, sometimes flowers, mostly with a palette knife.
After retirement at age 67, Jean lived a simple life. She and Leo would walk the beach every day. She would go to the thrift store several times a week while Leo sat reading. Jean herself loved to read mysteries.
After Leo died in 2009 Jean traveled with her son Ken every year until she was 91. They took the train across Canada and the Rocky Mountaineer through the Canadian Rockies, stopping to see relatives along the way. They saw Oregon, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Mount Rushmore, among other trips. Jean was always meeting new people and making them laugh.
She lived with Ken and the two shared a similar sense of humor, Ken joking that they were like Dorothy and Sophia from the Golden Girls. Each afternoon until the end of her life, they would take a drive, Jean giving Ken “crap” about his driving.
Ken describes Jean as a “little dynamo,” the image of “rage, rage against the dying of the light” from the Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Jean is survived by her sons, Paul Rosadiuk and Ken Rosadiuk, and daughter-in-law Linda Flores. She was preceded in death by her parents, Robert and Marion (Minnie) Mackay; her sister, Marion (Mahri) Milroy; her brother, Ian Mackay; and her husband, Leo Rosadiuk.