Margaret Jeraldine Westerby

Margaret Jeraldine Westerby, née Westhaver

 1930 - 2023

 Margaret died peacefully on 28 December at Stirling Park retirement home in Ottawa, Ontario, age 93. She leaves bereft and saddened her sons Roch (Sylvie) (Ottawa), Denis (Larissa) (New York), and Aurèle Parisien (Natacha) (Switzerland), and grandchildren Stephan, Nikko, Samira, and Balthazar. The daughter of Hilda and Dennis Westhaver of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, and stepdaughter of Stanley P. Pentz, she is predeceased by her brother Maurice, her brother Eugene and sister-in-law Marjorie, her former husband Yves Parisien, her husbands John J. Cooper and Robert Westerby, and her partner Murray Gardner (Brooklyn and New Glasgow). She is also survived by her nephews John and David Westhaver, and her nieces Lynn Lavander, Cindy Westhaver, Kristy Bona and Daphne Madigin.

 In the 1950s, she studied nursing at the Halifax Infirmary and then the University of Ottawa (B.Sc. and later M.Ed.), leading to a long career as a nursing instructor at St Vincent's Hospital and Algonquin College, Ottawa. She was an uncompromising and passionate advocate for the dignity of the patient, rigorous in her expectations of her students, and adored by them. 

 Hilda and Stan built Pentz's Cottages (now Hunts Point Beach Cottages), where Margaret worked in the canteen as a teenager and later made her sons' childhoods magical and transmitted her love of Nova Scotia by bringing them on annual summer vacations where they played with their Westhaver cousins and grounded themselves in the primal elements of sand, sea, and salt. She also imbued in them essential commitments to honesty, fairness, diligence, the equality of all, and the care for others.

 Margaret was devoted to her mother Hilda, whom she and John brought to Ottawa to live with them when Stan died in 1981. She loved big band music, Harry Belafonte, Petula Clark, several spectator sports, social dancing, walking, travel, hugs, and clothes with bright colours and bold patterns. Late in life, she was blessed to be reunited with Murray Gardiner, her Liverpool high-school sweetheart, and to spend many happy years with him in both Ottawa and New Glasgow and so also renew her ties with Nova Scotia. When they were teenagers, Murray would walk her home to Park Street after the dance, holding hands, but would then have to walk two miles home to Brooklyn. 

 A memorial service was held in Ottawa in January and Margaret’s ashes will be interred in the Westhaver family plot in the United East Cemetery on College Street in Liverpool on Saturday 13 July at 11 AM. The last of her generation, a great part of Margaret’s heart always remained on the South Shore of Nova Scotia and she will now return to join her beloved mother Hilda and second husband John, as well as her father Dennis and dear brothers Maurice and Eugene. And like in the old days, she’ll just be a ferry across the Mersey from Murray, who rests in Brooklyn. 

 The family is very grateful to the staff of Stirling Park Retirement Community for their dedication and care. Friends are encouraged to make a donation in her name to the Alzheimer Society of Canada (www.alzheimer.ca/ottawa) or to Children at Risk (www.childrenatrisk.ca/donate.php).