Journal entry by Bryan Bell —
From Tom:
Dear Friends,
We have been overwhelmed by all of your kind thoughts, wonderful stories and many, many prayers. I know that God answered those prayers because he promises that. He just did not answer them in the way we wanted. In his infinite wisdom and grace and loving kindness he answered them in the way that was best for Leslee.
It leaves me and our family with a huge holes in our hearts and lives which will always be there, but as we grieve and learn to live in this new reality we will be warmed by an incredible number of fond memories and the legacy left by the powerhouse of a woman with the kindest gentlest soul. We have been blessed.
It leaves me and our family with a huge holes in our hearts and lives which will always be there, but as we grieve and learn to live in this new reality we will be warmed by an incredible number of fond memories and the legacy left by the powerhouse of a woman with the kindest gentlest soul. We have been blessed.
Here is the obituary we have written that is our best attempt at capturing our description of who Leslee was, even though there are no words that can truly do that.
Leslee grew up in Hamilton, attending Central CI and HCI, and graduated from Ryerson in Food Science. She worked in the catering industry for 5 years before staying home for several years to work at her passion of raising Bryan and Greg. Tom and Leslee lived in Oakville for 38 years where they raised their family, moving to Hamilton in 2014. While in Oakville, Leslee and Tom became part of the loving Community of Trinity United Church, and after 17 years moved on to Upper Oaks Community Church where she loved being part of the creative team that designed the Sunday worship services. UOCC grew to become one of the largest churches in Canada – The Meeting House. She also loved her passion of being a Church Youth group Leader, and her phone and living room was available to the many lives she mentored 24 hours a day.
Even while working at the labor of love of raising her family, she attended and taught various night school classes, and as the boys grew older began her business Crafty Ideas. Crafty ignited her passion for events, and she moved forward into the Event Industry founding Decor & More in 1990. ‘D&M’ began as a one-person business providing unique creative design and execution to events as large as 3000 people in venues such as the SkyDome, and as small and intimate as 30 people. Through her immense talent, sheer force of will and incredible work ethic, Leslee built the business into the leader in the field in Canada, creating and executing the designs for over 600 events per year, with a team of 40+ ‘family’, and production facilities of over 40,000 sq ft. in Oakville and Calgary.
Decor & More become Canada’s largest and most awarded event design company, and her legacy lives on as Bryan and Greg now run the business. Leslee served as President of the Toronto Chapter and the Canadian Board of the International Live Events Association (formerly the International Special Events Society), and also served on the International Board. The Toronto Chapter created an award named the Leslee Bell Lifetime Achievement Award of which she was the first recipient. She was honored with Lifetime Achievement awards both nationally and internationally, the latter in 2013 at the The Special Event (TSE) in Chicago which is the ‘Oscars’ of the Live Events Industry. Leslee was a sought after conference speaker and workshop leader. She gave of her very special talent and creative genius freely, and there are many in the event industry who consider her to be a mentor, and even more a true friend.
She retired to her recent passion of being the best Gammy ever to Myles, Sadie and Caileigh, and grand-dog Duncan, and being the best ever partner, lover, soulmate and best friend to Tom, while almost daily connecting with Bryan and Greg on the business.
Due to Covid restrictions, all services will be private. If you wish to attend Visitation on Tuesday, June 15th please phone Dodsworth & Brown Funeral Home – Ancaster Chapel (905-648-3852) during business hours to schedule a visitation time. A livestream of the funeral service will become available on Wednesday, June 16th at 11:00am EST. Copy and paste the following link into your browser:
http://www.livememorialservices.com/Home/ServiceDetail/14168
When COVID restrictions allow in the near future, we will have an open invitation ‘celebration of life event’ which we trust will be up to the standard that Leslee herself would be proud of.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to The Meeting House Church, or the Canadian Cancer Society."
God bless you.
Tom, Greg, Bryan, Becci, Nicole, Barb, Gord, Merri
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