Edee Klee left us as gently and as profoundly as the dragonflies she so loved. Edee, 66, died after being recently diagnosed with cancer, on November 10, 2025, with her partner Garth Hood by her side at Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton.
Edee was a loving sister to Karen Klee-Atlin, sister-in-law to Gary Atlin, loving aunt to Michael Atlin and his partner Emily Brancato, great-aunt to Finch Brancato Atlin, all of Toronto, stepmother of Zjardyn Liera-Hood of Kitchener, and niece of Karl Hermann Mund and Hildegard Mund of Oakville. She is predeceased by her mother Edith Helen Klee (2019) and father Arthur Michael Klee (2000).
Edee was born in Toronto to immigrant parents from Romania. Raised on a farm in Glen Williams, a village of 900 people near Halton, Ontario, Edee and her older sister Karen had an idyllic childhood. They had an enormous kitchen garden, played in the creeks around their home, and rode horses competitively. Constant companions, the sisters loved the horses, but not the competition. Karen says Edee was always the better student and the best travel companion.
After 25 years working in the insurance industry in Toronto, Edee quit her job in search of a more meaningful life. She met Garth while he was studying in Ontario. As Garth and his son lived in New Brunswick, she decided to move east, settling in Fredericton in 2006. Edee practiced classical homeopathy from her new home on Charlotte Street and volunteered at the Community Action Group on Homelessness but longed for a way to address wider social problems.
“I wanted to look at removing barriers, perceived and real that stopped marginalized people from growing their own food and harnessing the health and mental benefits that come with it,” Edee told the National Trust of Canada in 2019.
Edee was a fan of The Stop Community Food Centre, a thriving community hub in Toronto where neighbours not only grow and distribute healthy food, but they also share food skills, foster social connections, and promote civic engagement. More than a food bank, this was the kind of community space that Edee wanted for Fredericton.
Elizabeth Crawford Thurber recalls Edee visiting her at the Fredericton Food Bank in 2009. She laid out a vision for a community garden in Fredericton and was looking for help to kickstart it. At the 2010 Fredericton Open Space Forum, Edee found more people equally passionate about food. Edee and Elizabeth along with Susanne White and Rob Palo soon found themselves meeting every Friday one winter to establish the New Brunswick Community Harvest Gardens.
Today, the New Brunswick Community Harvest Gardens stewards not only the St. Mary’s Community Garden with accessible raised beds, wide accessible pathways and gates for people with disabilities, but also the Marysville Community Garden and Hayes Farm. These spaces are peaceful, diverse, green getaways, located in urban residential neighbourhoods, and are accessible by public transit.
Edee and Elizabeth also worked with the Fredericton Food Bank from 2010 to 2014 to develop the Greener Village concept plan based around shifting from a charity-based emergency food model to a broader approach that emphasizes empowerment, community-building, and skills development around food.
Edee believed in the power of partnerships and feeding the underserved part of the population with not only fresh food but also hands-on learning opportunities.
Important to Edee was the integration of Wabanaki cultural wisdom and foodways into their programs, learning from the land, and taking personal and collective responsibility for the care of Mother Earth.
Wolastoq Grand Chief Ron Tremblay remembers meeting Edee during the creation of the Peace and Friendship Alliance years ago. “We were strategizing ways to stop fracking in New Brunswick and during the meeting She was quiet until we held a talking circle. When it was Her time to speak, Edee spoke with such eloquence, wisdom and logical advice.”
Chief Tremblay remembers how she supported the Peace and Friendship Alliance behind the scenes. Edee was never one to take up space, rather, she held space for others seeking fairness and justice.
From Honduras to Hayes Farm
It is impossible to not think of Hayes Farm when remembering Edee.
Edee set out on a mission to grow community gardens but more than anything she wanted to train the next generation of farmers in regenerative human-scale agriculture, and she found a place, Hayes Farm, to do just that.
Hayes Farm is a 7.5-acre property with vegetable gardens and an old farmhouse, nestled in a residential area known as Devon on Fredericton’s northside. When the owner of Hayes Farm, Mary Hayes, died in 2015, her nephew Ian Robertson, an architect who had been managing Mary’s estate, had a vision to maintain Hayes Farm for agriculture. In 2018, along came Edee and the New Brunswick Community Harvest Gardens and they launched an urban teaching farm pilot at the farm with six participants. The pilot was a success.
Edee spoke in the environmental praxis class at St. Thomas University for several years in a row, reminding students each year of the shortening timeframe to address global warming. Students lined up after her guest lectures, wanting to know how they could get in on the action at Hayes Farm. She became a mentor to the next generation, creating welcoming intergenerational spaces for people of all ages and backgrounds to become acquainted with social justice work.
Hannah Moore was one of the St. Thomas University students who did an internship at Hayes Farm. “I will always be grateful for my time at Hayes Farm. The opportunity to learn about small-scale agriculture, regenerative farming, and community resilience was deeply impactful and continues to inspire how I move through life today.”
“Edee’s vision and dedication have left a lasting impact on myself and many others. I trust that her legacy will carry on by bringing people together and encouraging compassion, connection, and kindness,” adds Hannah.
Valeria Boquin was another St. Thomas University student who volunteered at Hayes Farm. Originally from Honduras and a member of the Indigenous Lenca community, Valeria shares, “Edee’s work and the space she helped create had a lasting impact on me. At the time, I was a recent immigrant, still finding my way and my sense of belonging. Being away from home, Hayes Farm offered more than practical learning, it offered community, care, and respect for the land and for others. I felt truly welcomed and happy there.”
Valeria and her two sisters have all made Fredericton their home after studying at the city’s universities. It is spaces like Hayes Farm that made Fredericton a welcoming place for them to stay. Valeria is now providing energy and healing therapies rooted in Indigenous Lenca teachings and practices, and in her spare time volunteers with the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre that was launched at Hayes Farm in 2022.
“Being at Hayes Farm helped me reconnect with my roots and feel proud of where I come from. I saw that same sense of belonging in other immigrants who came through the farm. Many of us found connection and comfort through the land and the community around it,” shares Valeria.
Back in Honduras, more than 6,000 kilometres from Fredericton, on the night of March 2, 2016, Berta Cáceres, an Indigenous Lenca land defender who fought for the same things that Edee did – Indigenous food sovereignty and regenerative economies – was killed in her home because of her activism. Five years after her assassination, Berta’s family asked the world to plant trees in Berta’s memory on what would have been her 50th birthday. Of all the places in Fredericton, Berta would have most loved Hayes Farm. Berta’s Fredericton friends reached out to Edee to see if a tree could be planted at the farm and Edee aligned the stars to make it happen.
Hayes Farm is now home to the Berta Cáceres memorial bench and two apple trees that the Devon deer enjoy very much. Today, visitors from Guatemala, many of them Maya land defenders engaged in solidarity with the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network, visit the bench and pay homage to Berta.
For Edee, Hayes Farm was meant to be regenerative. She succeeded. For Valeria, “Hayes Farm was a place for her soul to rest and recharge.”
“Edee led with warmth, love, and courage. The farm and the staff reflect who she was as a leader. She was not afraid to advocate for the land, for community, and for others. It was in this space that my own desire to stand up for others and for the land was nurtured. I have been doing so since then, not afraid to stand up for what’s right and to protect others,” writes Valeria.
Grow Food, Grow Minds, Grow Communities
While the Hayes Farm crew makes what they do look easy and fun, nurturing such inclusive and safe spaces is hard work. Edee’s days were spent coming up with the right words to convince government and funders of the importance of what Hayes Farm could offer to the community.
After only one year of operation, Hayes Farm had hired a farm manager, had trained dozens of farmers and had grown truckloads of organic vegetables for farmers’ markets and for food insecure populations.
Mark Trealout was the manager at Hayes Farm. He remembers Edee as a deep thinker, sharing, “She had a unique talent to be able to go against the mainstream, but in a way that was not alienating to others, but, instead, she embodied a humble, inclusive, and genuinely kind way of ‘rebelling’, which was able to include so many other people to come along on that journey with her. A very unique skill indeed.”
Over the years, Hayes Farm has taught many people how to grow food but for Edee it was not just about growing food, it was about creating a different kind of economy that valued relationships with one another and the land. The slogan she pitched for the farm that stuck was “Grow Food, Grow Minds, Grow Communities.” Edee often said she didn’t have a green thumb, but she wanted to grow connections that realized everyone’s potential.
When Robert Sheidow is not growing vegetables at Hayes Farm, he is writing grant applications to keep the farm alive, a task he used to share with Edee. He says he keeps coming back to memories of Edee walking up the driveway of Hayes Farm with “her calm energy and hopefulness to whatever situation we were in.”
Robert’s partner and Hayes Farm volunteer Julia Hansen shares, “Hayes Farm won’t be the same without her small but mighty presence gracing the driveway on Open Farm Days, welcoming everyone in her straw sunhat and yellow scarf, greeting all those who wandered in to soak up the beauty and knowledge and connection offered there.”
For Julia, “Edee Klee was a beautiful human. She created. Spaces. Beauty. Connection. She had vision. Lived her values. Imagined and worked for and inhabited a world of values, of caring, of humanity, and gentle strength. She had the courage to quietly, passionately, and consistently work towards the world she knew to be good. Her neat haircut and signature glasses, happy face shining as we gathered at Hayes Farm will be forever in my memory.”
Over the years, Hayes Farm has been a hub of activity and a gathering place for Open Farm Days, and countless workshops about seeds and how to compost and grow organic food.
“Edee opened doors, for people working at Hayes Farm, and for the faeries living amid the flowers and the weeds. She taught me to pay attention to the planets and the stars. To dream big and have faith and magical things will happen,” shares Julia.
A magical creature
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” wrote Oscar Wilde. Edee’s friends remember Edee for looking at the stars. She shared horoscopes with even the most skeptical friends on their birthdays to connect with people. Amy Floyd says Edee moved her from being a skeptic to a lover of astrology, helping her “to enjoy the ‘spooky’ side of life as she would call it. I’ll miss my yearly horoscope emailed to me on my birthday this year.”
The summer Amy moved to Fredericton, she heard about this dreamy idea to start a training farm in Devon and that’s how she met Edee. For Amy, “It has been a privilege to see another human being take a dream, share it and craft it into reality year by year. I have rarely met someone as steadfast and dedicated to their values as Edee. For her, the produce from the community gardens and the farm was a bonus. The relationships that people built with the land, with each other and with themselves were what really mattered.”
Claire May says she got to be “Edee’s sidekick, a special place to be both professionally and personally” at Hayes Farm for several years. Claire shares, “Edee was a magical creature. She gave me many opportunities to confirm this conviction and share as much with her.”
When Claire thinks of Edee, she remembers her belief in the goodness of people, and “that if we can find a way, a place, a calling through which a person can feel at home with themselves, their goodness will prevail. Her passion was deep and relentless. Over and over, I marveled at Edee’s ability to remember detail, and weave together gossamer threads of potential until they became a clear picture that not only made sense but came to life.”
“There are countless conversations, looks, gestures, mannerisms, and memories that I will cherish about my time sharing a world with Edee. I think we and this community we call home are all are better for having known this magical creature,” adds Claire.
Mikey Colborne worked closely with Edee during the first year of the Hayes Farm program and wrote How to Start Your Community Farm: A Living Handbook from the Folks at Hayes Farm. Mikey is now creating a sign for a path in the woods outside Edee and Garth’s home called “Edee’s Way.” The sign will feature dragonflies that gave Edee great joy.
“Edee had a special ability to see the innate wisdom and ability in others. If you were working with Edee, she could see exactly how you were special and what strengths you brought to the work. A lot of us will carry that for the rest of our lives: how Edee saw us and the way she trusted us to show up, do the work, and make real change. What a profound legacy to leave a generation of change makers in Fredericton and beyond,” shares Mikey.
For Amy, “In my imagination, for the last few decades of Edee’s life she was like a mighty salmon swimming upstream against the heavy current of the status quo. Now that she has made it back to calmer, home waters, I know she is resting in the peace, cooperation and sharing she so valued. I know that everyone who knew Edee will do their part to keep working towards those values here too.”
“Believe.” – Ted Lasso
Garth recalls how much his partner loved the show, Ted Lasso. “We rarely watched anything more than once, yet we watched this series at least three times. What was so special about this show? I think it starts with ‘Believe.’ Edee did believe that people would perform at their best if given non-judgmental support. People need to find their place over time. This cannot be rushed. We can only do this when we believe that what we are doing matters.”
For Garth, Edee epitomized perseverance and integrity and expected no less from others. “Since we spent most mornings sitting at the kitchen table both doing our own work, she would sometimes ask me about more technical questions. We would try to solve problems together. I already miss those times. Now there is just an empty chair.”
Garth remembers Edee’s passion for reciprocity. “Reciprocity is why she spent 15 years volunteering 20-60 hours a week to build and sustain the New Brunswick Community Harvest Gardens and Hayes Farm. She loved Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, The Serviceberry. It is all about reciprocity.”
Living on a small pension during her retirement, Edee felt it was the Livable Basic Income she needed to do what she wanted in life, and it was the kind of security she advocated for everyone. “This is what made her heart sing,” shares Garth, “giving without any expectation of anything in return.”
“Edee believed that if Canada were to implement a Livable Basic Income that projects like Hayes Farm would be able to run on volunteer efforts. She also believed that we would see thousands of other human-centered projects springing up across the country. Edee believed that a Livable Basic Income would give people the gift of time. With that time many people would choose to do good work, creating good projects.”
Garth adds, “Edee believed in, ‘Believe.’”
In Edee’s memory, donations to the New Brunswick Community Harvest Gardens are welcomed, but more than anything, she would want you to write your MP or MLA or city councilor and tell them you support Hayes Farm, healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food for everyone, a Livable Basic Income for everyone, regenerative economies that prepare us for climate change, and respect for the Peace and Friendship Treaties.
A memorial service celebrating Edee’s life is being planned at Hayes Farm in June. For details, contact Tracy at info@nbmediacoop.org.
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Tracy Glynn met Edee Klee in 2006 when both moved to Fredericton. Their paths crossed many times over the next two decades including at meetings at Conserver House, rallies at the New Brunswick Legislature and in classrooms at St. Thomas University. She is deeply honoured to have worked with Garth Hood on memorializing her friend and her many contributions towards making Fredericton and beyond a better place for everyone.
