DARTE, MARGARET WILSHIRE FOSTER June 13, 1921 – March 27, 2019
Born in Galt, ON to Mary Ethel Walsh Foster of Wingham, ON and Henry James Foster of Derby, England who immigrated to Ontario at the age of 16 and eventually became Publisher of the Welland Tribune. The family moved to Welland in 1927 where Margaret attended Ross Public School and Welland High and Vocational School. She went to University at Trinity College in Toronto for three years and graduated with a Pass Arts in 1943. After Working for a short time for the Ministry of Transport in the weather department, she married John Darte, also of Welland, in September of 1944. Her husband’s medical career took them to England twice in the 1950s and to St. John’s, Newfoundland to be part of the new Memorial Medical School in the late sixties and early seventies.
Always active in any community she lived in, she volunteered her time to numerous organizations and community groups including the Women’s Auxiliary at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, Chair of the PTA at Villa Marguerite Bourgeois High School, NONIA (Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association) in Newfoundland, on the Founding Executive of the Women’s Association of Memorial University and as Chair of the Janeway Day at the Races for Janeway Children’s Hospital in St. John’s. Upon her return to Ontario in 1974, she decided to return to school and graduated with a Masters of Divinity from McMaster and Trinity College. As part of her Chaplaincy, she lead her first group for bereaved parents at the Hospital for Sick Children and began a journey of working with other bereaved parents and the Ministry of Health to help found Bereaved Families of Ontario. Again, she volunteered her time to Trinity on the Trinity College Council, St. Hilda’s Board of Trustees and served on the Trinity Chapel Advisory Committee. In 1990, she received an Honourary Doctorate in Divinity from Trinity College.
When her eyesight began to fail, she moved to Hazelton Place Seniors Residence in 2002 and again contributed to her new community. She was predeceased by her daughter Madeleine, her husband and her father in 1975 and her mother in 1986. She is survived by her younger daughter, France and her son-in-law Michael McCabe, her granddaughters Emilie (Ian Krykorka) and Alison (Joshua Larkin) and her great-grandson Vladimir Krykorka. She will be much missed by her many nieces and nephews of the Johnson, Scott, Taylor and Freestone families, some very dear friends and by her Companions of the Holy Cross.
We would like to thank the staff and PSWs who took such good care of her for seventeen years at Hazelton Place and for the supportive caring staff of Hotel Dieu Shaver Centre, St. Catharines.
Family will receive friends at HULSE & ENGLISH FUNERAL HOME, 75 Church Street, St. Catharines, (905) 684-6346, on Friday, March 29, 2019 from 7-9 p.m. and on Saturday, March 30, 2019 from 10-11 a.m. with a funeral Service to follow at the funeral home. Burial will be held at Woodlawn Cemetery in Welland, Ontario.
In lieu of flowers, a donation in her memory can be given to Bereaved Families of Ontario, the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, the St. John’s Janeway Children’s Hospital or a Charity of your choice. Online condolences may be made at www.hulseandenglish.com