Kitty MacLeod

Woman, 87, killed while walking to Dundas seniors’ home for visit

Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 3, 2012

When Cynthia Thomas heard the accident outside her Governors Road apartment building, she looked at her watch and she knew.

“Instantly I thought ‘Oh no, Kitty,’” she said Sunday night.

“I ran out in my pyjamas.”

Kitty MacLeod, 87, crossed the street at that very spot — twice a day, every day — to visit her brother at St. Joseph’s Villa across the street, despite crippling arthritis that forced her to walk with a hunch.

Everyone in the building knew her, Eleanor Andrews said.

“She was a wonderful lady.

Cynthia’s daughter Jahvon Thomas, 13, remembers her sitting on the benches out front in the nice weather, watching the people go by.

“She was really nice,” she said.

MacLeod had two children, Jay MacLeod and Jill MacLeod Jonkman, neither of whom live locally, said neighbour Anne Foley.

“She was in the armed forces as a young woman with her husband,” Foley said. Together, they’d travelled the world.

MacLeod had recently cared for her brother in her apartment before he moved into the facility across the road.

“She was very independent and an incredibly sociable lady. She was always on the go,” Foley said.

In addition to her twice-daily visits with her brother, she was known to shuffle down to the grocery store every day.

Residents gathered in the lobby Sunday night, sharing stories of the woman as news of her death travelled.

“We all said Kitty’s going to be killed one day crossing there,” Judy Walker said. “Some of us are very angry … that road is like a highway.”

Many residents in the building said they’ve complained for years that a crosswalk is needed on that stretch of road.

“They go 100 (kilometres an hour), some of them,” Cynthia Thomas said. “It’s so dangerous.”

Police have not released the cause of the accident.

Hamilton Staff Sergeant Bryan Grigsby said Sunday afternoon that the accident reconstruction unit is continuing its investigation.