Naomi Roxane Brost

Beloved Mother, Wife, and Warrior.

In 1962, on January 3rd, in the depths of winter, in the prairie town of Bow Island, Alberta, Naomi Roxane Brost became the very first baby born of that year. Alongside six sisters (Nancie, Janice, Karen, Susan, Judy and Patsy,) and a single brother (Stanley,) Naomi grew up north of Edmonton near the town of Westlock, on a small pioneer-like subsistence farm run by her parents, Mary Frances Ozano and Bernard William Hillgardner. Naomi’s tales of her childhood growing up on that farm, growing vegetable crops, secretly eating sweet peas on the barn roof when her parents weren’t home, learning to sew from her mom, driving and riding horses, recounts of farm animals like Bimbo the dog, pet chicken Weasel and even sightings of UFOs flying high over Alberta have enchanted Naomi’s own daughter. A rare high school field trip to the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Icefield sparked a lifelong love of mountains and turquoise alpine lakes in Naomi’s heart.

When she was a kid one winter, worried about her family staying warm in a forecasted blizzard, Naomi and one of her sisters once filled the family woodbox right to the ceiling, and didn’t have to bring in wood again for three whole days! Even when Naomi was little she was tenacious, refusing help from kin and taking on school bus bullies twice her size. As a child Naomi was called Roxane or Rocky, as her religious grandmother did not believe in calling children by their biblical name; in her adult life she asked to be called by her proper first name.

In May 1980, at the age of 18, Naomi met her husband to be and the love of her life, Bryan Bradley Brost, who in a true storybook romance, dated her on the back of his Harley Davidson motorcycle. Bryan took her on amazing adventures; camping in the Rockies, and even road tripping to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. They fell madly in love, and Bryan proposed to Naomi on her 19th birthday at the Tiki Tiki restaurant in Edmonton. Thus, in 1981, on August 15th, after Naomi had sewed her very own wedding dress, they were joyfully married in Wetaskawin, Alberta. (Naomi would have liked everyone to know that she also sewed her own graduation dress!) In 1983 Naomi and Bryan’s first child Kevin Daniel Brost was born; in 1986 Joshua Adam Brost arrived and in 1990 their family was completed by daughter Rosanna Pauline Brost. Six weeks later Naomi and her family moved from Medicine Hat to the northern region of the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, with stints living at Gardom Lake, Eagle Rock, in Armstrong, and just outside of Vernon, along with many wonderful summers spent at The Lake Lot on Westside Road. There, Naomi loved to beachcomb, canoe, play, and cool off in the waters of Okanagan Lake.

Naomi spent her 61 years, 6 months and 30 days creatively and outside in nature; she loved growing her own food, sewing many beautiful quilts and articles of clothing, drawing, painting. She adored hiking in the Rockies, climbing trees, soaking in summer sunshine, finding views from high places where she felt like a giant, horses, owls, the family cats, finding waterfalls, playing videogames, putting together jigsaw puzzles, singing in choir, playing her flute and her drum, seeing wild tiger lilies, animation like Pixar and Studio Ghibli films, plus she loved reading and watching science fiction like Anne McAffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, Star Wars and Star Trek. Naomi loved dancing, road tripping and horseback riding in the mountains with Bryan, who frequently made her laugh with his very corny jokes. She was seldom seen without her daughter Rosanna by her side; at age 3, Rosanna even put her mom’s shoulder out while on vacation because she refused to let go of her mother’s hand! Even as an adult, Rosanna absolutely adored her mother and lovingly shadowed her everywhere. Naomi’s cooking was the very best; her favourite holiday was Christmas when the whole family was all together again and she celebrated with beloved antique and handmade ornaments on the live tree (always a fraser fir,) and with beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies.

Her favourite food was potatoes, her favourite colour was turquoise; she dreamed of one day visiting Italy and Australia as well as learning to fly a plane. Being a lover of interior design and off-grid housing, Naomi also dreamed of building a dream house and thanks to a miracle surgery performed by Dr. Kevin Wiseman in 2019, in 2020 she and Bryan were able to complete their dream of constructing a magnificent new lakeside cabin from scratch by themselves. Her favourite vacation ever was when she visited Hawaii with Bryan in 2018 and saw real live sea turtles, one of her favourite animals (along with cougars, snowy owls, horses (her favourite breed was the pinto gypsy cob,) and dragonflies.)

Although she was raised religious as a child, in her adulthood Naomi became pagan agnostic, even undertaking basic shaman training, believing in positive energy, spirits, guides, and reincarnation. She loved attending monthly full moon gatherings with her lady friends and for a time she was part of Armstrong’s Asparagus Theatre, even starring once as Scrooge’s housekeeper in the company’s production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Alongside her husband Bryan, Naomi became a citizen genealogist and traced one of her bloodlines back seventeen generations to the very beginnings of European Canada, where she discovered that she was first cousins with infamous French explorer Jacques Cartier, the the man who discovered the Saint Lawrence River and named our country after the indigenous Huron-Iroquois word ‘kanata,’ meaning ‘village’ or ‘settlement.’ She also found ancestors from across Europe, from Italy, Germany and France, as well as Métis.

A homemaker while her kids were growing up, Naomi worked at PRT in Vernon growing baby conifer trees for reforestation projects until her long ongoing war with the rare cancer leiomyosarcoma forced her to retire. As a cancer patient Naomi was an absolute dreadnought, time and again surviving against the odds and well past all medical predictions. Tough as nails, Naomi’s spirit never broke; in the end, her body failed her, and Naomi graduated peacefully from the physical world at 5:38 AM on August 2nd 2023. She is survived by her family and many friends, all of whom adored her stubborn, fiery but sweet creative warrior spirit, and who will carry her beautiful memory in their hearts forever, and who look forward to hugging her again someday in heaven. Everyone will dearly miss her dry humour, her kindness, her wonderful hugs, and her great laugh.

The date of her Celebration of Life is to be announced but will be in late July 2024; her family wishes to extend their deepest thanks to Vernon Jubilee Hospital’s awesome ambulatory care department, Canadian Blood Services, the North Okanagan Hospice Society, the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Dr. Kevin Wiseman, and Dr. Lindsay Pritchett for everything that they did for Naomi to aid her in her many-year cancer war. Thanks to them, our precious warrior Naomi lived far longer than she would have otherwise, and enjoyed many more sunlit trails with her family.

Arrangements entrusted to

Cypress Funeral & Cremation Services 250-558-0866

Condolences may be expressed to the family by phone or email through Cypress Funeral & Cremation Services: