Margaret Jean Kelly

It is with profoundly heavy hearts that we share the passing of our mother, Margaret Jean (Peggy) Kelly (née McIntosh) on March 4, 2025 age 95.

Peggy was born in Toronto on October 2, 1929 but spent her growing up years in North Bay as the eldest child in a loving and lively family.

Peggy lived her life with passion. She was an excellent student and completed her education at the University of Toronto, Trinity College, where she obtained a degree in Modern Languages and Literatures in 1951. She then obtained a Teacher’s Certificate in 1952 from OCE. She started her teaching career in Windsor, Ontario, but soon after she and a fellow teacher accepted a teaching post at Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Station Zweibrücken, Germany. While overseas, whenever she had the chance, Peggy, together with her teacher friends, would travel to exotic places in Europe and the Middle East.

Peggy never lost her love of learning and was always researching and compiling papers for her own interest or to present at one of her many study groups. Her passion extended to music. She was an accomplished pianist. We loved to hear her play during our childhood and to join her in a sing-song around the piano. She threw herself wholeheartedly into everything she did and she has left us many beautiful examples of her sewing and quilting and great tomes of meticulously researched family history.

Peggy saved her greatest love for her family. She is predeceased by her parents Hugh Graham McIntosh and Elizabeth (Betty) McIntosh (née Pezzack). Mom often reflected with amazement and gratitude at the dedication of her parents in raising four happy and healthy children in North Bay during the Great Depression. She is also predeceased by her wonderful husband Albert Edward Murray Kelly (1928-1995) whom she met in Zweibrücken, Germany, where he was serving in the RCAF. After returning home, they married in 1956 and shared many adventures raising their two children while moving from base to base across Canada.

She will never be forgotten by her children Douglas (late Norma MacKellar) and Janet (Warren Dunlop) and her grandchildren, Ian Kelly (Beth) and Colin Kelly (Paula Lagman). Nothing gave Mom more joy than cozying up for a laugh-filled family dinner.

She had an enduring and loving relationship with her siblings, Janet Stoddart (late Bill), David McIntosh (Jean), and Bill McIntosh (late Connie), and her many nieces and nephews.

In her final years, as her memory started to fail, Peggy moved to Canterbury Gardens in Peterborough.

The family would like to thank the entire staff at Canterbury Gardens for their kind and compassionate care. The family would also like to thank the competent and compassionate care that Peggy received in her final hours at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Comstock-Kaye Life Celebration Centre, 356 Rubidge Street, Peterborough on March 19, 2025 from 2-4pm with family tributes at 3pm.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider a donation to Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation, Kawartha Land Trust, or Canadian Hearing Services.