NewmarketToday is marking this giving season by celebrating Newmarket's Community Angels, the people whose kindness, compassion and community spirit help make our town one of the best to live in the country.
Newmarket’s 2019 citizen of the year Julie Cochrane died on Sept. 19 at the Margaret Bahen Hospice, but her energy and spirit live on in the many lives she touched with her kindness and compassion.
As one of Newmarket’s most passionate advocates, particularly as its most ardent historic downtown booster where she also lived, Cochrane left a legacy of love, caring, and awareness of the importance of friendship.
Dear friend Tracee Chambers wrote on social media the day after Cochrane passed: “Oh, the places we have been. How does one endure the loss of a dear friend? I will miss Julie’s zest for life, her creative ability to always think outside of the box and her concern for those she loved and her community at large.
“I was truly blessed when we met at chemo/Southlake four years ago as two baldies that lived one street apart. We became so close in such a short span of time. Thank you for all that you’ve done for me and for our incredible journey, with its highs and lows that we shared together in such a small amount of time. Shine on, my beautiful Julie. You will be missed.”
Cochrane, who founded the citizens' group Heart of Newmarket to save the downtown’s historic Clock Tower and preserve Main Street, told NewmarketToday in a mid-April 2019 interview that history, heritage and a passion for the arts drives her community involvement.
“I’m just an average volunteer, an ordinary person,” Cochrane said at her Botsford Street heritage home just days after being named Newmarket’s citizen of the year. “The honour is seriously overwhelming, and it’s wonderful. But, I guess, when you add on the layer that I have cancer and I’ve been really trying to present myself as a leader and to let people know that cancer isn’t necessarily a death sentence or something you have to be depressed about, I think they wanted to highlight that.”
When Cochrane was first diagnosed in 2015, she was told she had stage 1 breast cancer. She said that misdiagnosis was discovered in 2017 when she learned it had been stage 4 the whole time and had metastasized.
“I just decided I was going to look at every way possible to beat this thing,” she said. “Stage 4 is considered terminal, but I will not believe that for one second and I’m doing everything possible so I can get past it and help other people through it.”
Cochrane also served an eight-year term as president of the Newmarket Group of Artists.
A marketing professional by trade, Cochrane dissolved her firm, Creative House, after her diagnosis. That allowed her the opportunity to make new friendships and partnerships with Newmarket business owners.
One of those collaborations included partnering with Newmarket’s RC Design to help create Community Living’s $5-million Happy Hearts campaign.
That goal was met and the organization this fall moved into its newly renovated space near Mulock Drive and Bayview Avenue.
Cochrane was the energetic organizer in her family, always ready to host Christmas gatherings in Newmarket and parties at her family’s cottage in Muskoka, says her obituary at Roadhouse and Rose.
“For all of those who miss Julie, we draw comfort and inspiration from the joy and perspective that she exhibited, once she knew her time was limited. How incredible it was to hear Julie, just a few months ago, telling family and friends that she’d never been happier. ‘I know it sounds crazy’, she would say, but I’m living the way I want to, with people who care about me, and I feel great’.”
“Rest well now, Julie, and thank you for the laughter and memories”.
