Kelly Marie Barratt St-Jacques

On December 2, 2025, at the age of 67, Kelly died peacefully surrounded by her family.

A voracious reader, a gifted professor, a passionate dog agility trainer, an adventurer, a lover of walks in the woods and going to the beach, Kelly was, above all, the very best partner, mother, Nana, and friend.

Kelly spent her career teaching for the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. Over her 30 years as a professor, Kelly shared her love of literature with thousands of students. In 2021, Kelly won a Distinguished Teaching Award after having been nominated by several of her colleagues. The extent to which she not only helped her students develop as learners but also touched their lives was evident in the testimonials many of them shared as part of the nomination process for her award and in the messages she received from past students. In her final years with the University, Kelly was hired for a Long-Term Appointment, during which she became the only part-time professor to teach graduate-level courses. Throughout her career, Kelly worked tirelessly to find new and different ways to engage her students and to make sure their university experience was a positive one.

Outside of her teaching, Kelly was passionate about agility, building remarkable relationships with her dogs and learning everything she could. She was especially proud of being named to the Canadian National Agility Team five times, and of competing at the World Agility Open for Team Canada three times in Ermelo, Netherlands with two different dogs. She relished those adventures with her beloved shelties and with her teammates.

While Kelly had many different interests and passions she devoted time to, the thing she loved most was being with her family. She was happiest surrounded by her people, and often told us how blessed she had been to find her wonderful husband Ray to build her life and family with. She loved being a mother and was devoted to her children, but took maybe her greatest delight from being a grandmother. While there were many things she told us she was sad she wouldn’t get to be part of, the one that broke her heart the most was not being able to see her five grandsons grow up. Even though her time with us was so much shorter than we wanted, we feel eternally grateful she was ours. As she told us so often in her final weeks, “every day is a blessing.” We knew it too.

Kelly is survived by her loving husband Raymond, her daughter Kaitlin (Jahn), her son Daniel (Jenna), her step-children Anne (Michael), Chantal (Brent), and Martin (Lisa), her grandchildren Jack, Sam, Felix, Barratt, Kit, her bonus grandchildren Reuben, Casey, Emma, Sophie and Finn, her brothers Greg (Debbie) and Mychael (Amanda), her nieces and nephew, her shelties Tango, Zuzu and Teddie, and countless friends.

Our family would like to thank the incredible nursing team from 7 East at the Ottawa Hospital, General Campus for the incredible care they provided in Kelly’s final weeks of life. A celebration of Kelly’s life will be held on May 2, 2026. Details to follow.

In lieu of flowers, donations to Pancreatic Cancer Canada/ Pancreatic Cancer North America are welcome.