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(Jones) Caines, Sandra Kennedy "Sandy"

Passed away June 20th, 2019
Of Halifax. Died on June 20, 2019, in QEII Health Sciences Centre, Centennial Building, where she had been receiving care following emergency surgery on April 4th. Sandy's family expresses their gratitude to the QEII staff for the exemplary care she received throughout her illness, and most especially to Sandy's physiotherapists and the nursing staff of the 9th floor General Surgery wing and the staff of the ICU. Sandy was born in 1939 in Halifax, daughter of J. H. Mowbray Jones and Phyllis (Hodges) Jones, and grew up in Liverpool. She attended King's-Edgehill School in Windsor before earning a bachelor's degree in sociology and psychology in 1956 from King's College, where she met and fell in love with her future husband, George Caines. Sandy and George were married in 1960. Sandy worked briefly as a librarian on the Dalhousie campus before beginning to raise their family, which would remain her greatest lifelong passion. Her volunteer work included service to Halifax Grammar School and St. George's Church. In midlife, she enthusiastically joined the growing national trend toward physical fitness, eventually competing in a half-marathon, walking across the Confederation Bridge on the day of its inauguration, and working as a volunteer fitness instructor at the Halifax YMCA for some 16 years. Later in life, Sandy discovered a gift and vocation as a photographer; she studied extensively with Freeman Paterson and André Gallant in their workshops in Shamper's Cove, N.B., and collaborated on several of her projects with fellow Halifax photographer Eric Boutilier-Brown. Sandy's work was exhibited in solo, duo, and group shows in Halifax's ViewPoint Gallery, of which she was a long-time member, as well as in other venues around Nova Scotia. Her favored subjects included portraiture, especially of her four grandchildren; large-scale abstractions based on the flowers and forests of the province she loved deeply and where she spent her entire life; and a long-term project to document the abandoned farmhouses and their outbuildings found across rural Nova Scotia. Sandy was predeceased by her parents and by her sisters, Jennifer and Stephanie, known to her family as Taffy. She is survived by her brother Derek; her husband, George; her sons, Christopher Caines and Michael Caines, and Michael's husband, Tyler Whitworth, all of New York City; her daughter Sarah Aucoin and son-in-law Tim Aucoin, of Mississaugua, Ont.; her daughter Melissa Caines and son-in-law Robbie Wadden, of Halifax; and her grandchildren, Riley and John Aucoin and Liam and Nate Wadden. A generous and gracious hostess all her life, her passing is mourned by her family and by hundreds of friends. A private family celebration of her life will be held later this summer on the South Shore. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to ARK Outreach, Halifax (www.arkoutreach.com/getinvoled) or a charity of one's choice. 
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King’s-Edgehill School is located in Mi'kma'ki, the unceded ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq People.