Tribute

Jacob (Jay) N. Friesen was born March 15, 1946 in Carman, Manitoba, into a family of 12 children.  He had seven sisters and four brothers and was the 7^th youngest.  He was predeceased by his parents, one sister and his oldest and youngest brothers.  His family moved to a small mixed farm near Wingham, Manitoba where he started school.  He left school early and went to Winnipeg and worked several mechanical jobs.

In 1965 he met Irene through his sister and on July 16, 1966 they were married.  Almost immediately he left work and went back to school to upgrade so he could become a firefighter or a police officer.   A friend of his introduced him to Amway and that became their life for about 10 years.  He loved a short real estate stint just before the disaster of the early  80’s.  When his children were 5 and 3, they moved to British Columbia and settled in the South Surrey/White Rock area.  He had a great relationship with Nathan and Pam.  They both spent lots of time with him particularly in the last year. His daughter-in-law Trish will miss Jay too – he loved her.

Again, many changes occurred.  He studied to qualify for his life insurance license and thereafter kept on upgrading until he opened the first Friesen Financial Services office in White Rock.  When Jay and Irene sold that business he got involved in raising capital for private and public companies.  He loved poking away at that until about a year before his passing.

Jay travelled to 90 countries either with Irene on vacations or ministry trips or alone on business trips.  He especially loved trips to Mexico where he could practice his Spanish – he even went to Antigua, Guatemala to take classes.  He enjoyed many wonderful business relationships.

He enjoyed skiing and golfing with Irene, his family and friends.  Also he loved having fun in the pool or at the ocean with his grandchildren.  His six grandchildren will really miss Papa.  He prayed daily for each of them by name.   They liked to play games with him –  it was always a hoot!

He was the king of power washing!!!   We knew he was going to open the pool very soon when he got that power washer out and the pool would be 90 degrees for his wimps because he loved them all so much.

He was our music man – either singing or listening to music.  He often played his air guitar.   In his later years he focused on his favorite spiritual songs and during his last two weeks sang “soon and very soon I’m going to see the King”.

He did just that quietly and peacefully on March 17, 2026.   His last 18 months were difficult in many ways because the bone metastasis from his 25 year prostate cancer battle was very painful and he became very frail.  Even in his four months when he was in the care home, he never lost his dry sense of humor.

He was extremely grateful for all his friends and for the prayers of friends and acquaintances.  He too became a prayer warrior—praying for someone immediately when he heard a need.

He turned 80 two days before he left.  He was married to Irene for 59 years, 8 months and one day.

A Celebration of Life is planned for May 8^th at 1 pm at Cascade Community Church at 35190 Delair Rd., Abbotsford.

The service will be livestreamed at:

https://www.legacystreaming.com/wiebejeske/