Piper Jane Paige McKinnon (Rachael Allison Becevel)
It is with saddened hearts the family of Piper Jane Paige McKinnon, of Edmonton, Alberta, announces her passing on April 14, 2024, at the age of 50.
Her memory lives on in the hearts of her spouse, Kurt Bayliss; parents, Micheal and Marion Becevel; grandparent, Alice Munroe; siblings, Regan and Sam Becevel, along with many extended family, friends, and beloved cats.
Raised in Victoria, BC, she eventually moved to Vancouver, where she spent several of her favourite years as a singer and songwriter. Drawn to Calgary for new opportunities, here she met Kurt, and began her journey with him. Ever curious, she started university night courses, and soon moved to Edmonton to attend the U of A full time. While at school she explored her love of languages, strengthened her French, and picked up conversational Italian and Spanish. She spent the last few years of her life expanding relationships with her loved ones. She most recently looked forward to remixing and rerecording her old songs with her music partner Gregg.
Piper loved to read, write, and laugh. We will miss her tremendously.
Piper was my very first best friend. We were kindred spirits. We knew each other when our spark was pure and bright. I am devastated by the loss of my dear friend of 42 years. All of my love and thoughts are with you Kurt, Marion, Mike, Sammy and Rags.
I’m grateful for all the fun times I had with Piper when we were children. We used to play dress-up with bedsheets and pretend to royalty with different ways of wearing our gowns and capes, and Piper’s commitment to the mak-believe and imagination made it so fun.
I loved putting on plays with her, we’d make cardboard stages and elaborate characters. Piper was a performer and she was hilarious.
Piper and I wrote ”The Book of Rachel” in a coffee shop one summer in her teens. She had a gift for clever humor – the whole thing was a jab at the book of Morman.
She became a brilliant musician, in no small part to that natural creative talent.
I cherish the memories of our good times together and the special impact she had on me. My heart is with you Piper, thanks for sharing your gifts with me.
I’m so sorry for this loss, Piper was far too young.
It so hard to lose Piper when she still had so much life ahead of her. Somehow, our family seems very much smaller now. One of my treasured memories of Piper was when we were working so hard to establish a women’s shelter in Slave Lake. I invited her to come up and help us out with a fundraiser and she arrived with her band and her Mom!!
The band played until the last person left and we made a bunch of dollars towards our goal.
She had such a great work ethic for this project. I’ll always be grateful to her! But, I think it is something that many people are not aware that she did.
I remember the trip to Slave Lake very fondly…it was a highlight of my musical “career” and a fun filled road trip adventure with two friends. Piper was a unique talent with a very clear artistic vision. I was so fortunate to work with her, and am so grateful for the time we spent together. We’d been working together again over the last 6 months, and her support, passion, energy and creativity were so inspiring. Her passing has left a huge hole in my life an I miss her every day. My condolences to all of her family and friends.
This is spooky. In 2006 Piper and I had a brief flurry of intense contact. I never met her face to face though. I had written an online article about equality between the sexes. I advocated for men and women to work towards this. She sent me a one word response. “Brilliant.”
We exchanged over 90 emails after that. She could be sarcastic, snarky, in love with her cats and her music was inspired. We clicked … except for the cats.
So for about 18 years I hadn’t heard from her.
For some reason, this is the spooky part, I thought of her the other day and went back and spent hours going over our irreverant messages.
Then I decided to do a Google search to try and find out more about her, and sadly I got the worst news. She is no longer with us … in body form.
My condolences to all. She did send me some great pictures and if anyone would like to see them I would be happy to pass them along.
Incidentally, I knew her when I lived in White Rock, B.C. and she lived in Vancouver. But, I was born and sorta raised in Edmonton.
I can be reached at Settingwomenfree@gmail.com
This is very sad news indeed. My thought go out the the family and close ones.
Around 2010 Piper contributed with a song to the first (and so far only) album of the Swedish band Bus Stop Dreams. Where I was one of the members.
Piper and I also made demos of a few of her songs with her vocals.
Not doing music for many years I’ve picked it up again. I listened to some of our recordings yesterday and thought I should make contact.
Chock is the only proper word for my feelings now.
We never met in person (Canada and Sweden is far apart) but I think we had fun making good music.
If the family is interested in the recordings I can be reach at lasse.thomassonATgmail.com.
I was pipers hairstylist for the last 7 or so years. I started by just cutting her hair as she saw the colour specialist at the first salon I started at . Even when I was new and learning she was always so kind and lovely and easy to talk to . When I went independent she followed me and supported my co owner and I so full heartedly . I really enjoyed talking to her about politics , she was always so well informed and on the right side of things. Even if I was grumpy or having a bad day , as soon as I started chatting with her I would feel instantly better . . I’m devastated to hear of her passing and I truly miss her already . I’ll never forget her love and support and good chats . Wherever you are I hope you’re not in pain anymore, love, Celine
Piper and I were friends briefly in high school when she dated a friend of mine. We celebrated her 16th birthday driving around with ice cream cake in the car, and just having a laughter filled night. We lost touch after but of course, FB brought us back in touch. Fly high and be at peace sweet talented lady – gone far too young for sure. My condolences to her family, husband, and all that knew her well, her loss will be felt for sure. 💔