One of thirteen children in 1919, was born on a farm in Saskatchewan Canada, to a French speaking family.  Though her family often moved and lived in poverty, Isabelle was frequently the top student in her class. As an adult she graduated with a degree in Public Health from the University of British Columbia where she met her husband on a blind date. She worked all her life as a nurse, raised three children, and began a new career as Chief Technologist at the Cancer Foundation in Santa Barbara at age 50. She was a kind and compassionate woman known for her wit, strength of character, and unsentimental wisdom and a role model to her daughters, their friends and their female cousins. She died in 2001 in her favorite city, Santa Barbara. (Tile dedicated by her daughter Mimi Lyons.)