Mary Camilla Gillespie

While attending a summer course in Kingston in 1952 she met a handsome young army engineer there for his C.O.T.C. training. They got married in 1955.

Like her mother before her, Mary became a teacher. She also took an honours degree in history and English at the University of Western Ontario, thanks to the support of two Chicago uncles, and then obtained a Teaching Certificate at the Ontario Teachers College and spent much of her career as a gym teacher. Her most famous student was Bobby Hull, which led to some friendly reunions when he played exhibition games at the Forum from time to time in the late 1960s.

Meanwhile, Len finished his degree in engineering from the University of Toronto and began a construction career that sent them all over Ontario and ultimately to Nova Scotia in 1963, where they settled down for good.

Mom’s two top priorities in life were her family and her Catholic faith. Once her first child arrived she left her teaching career to become a full-time stay-at-home Mom, raising five children in all.

Mom liked to read and had a strong interest in history, particularly Irish history. She was very proud of her Irish roots and celebrated them until the day she died. As a young mother and throughout her life, she was an avid reader of history, spirituality, social issues and detective stories, particularly Agatha Christie. She liked the songs of John McDermott. She was also a hockey and Grey Cup enthusiast, and one of her last passions in life was “Word-Find”, which she played most enthusiastically in her final few months. She also enjoyed watching the deer that visited her backyard every few days.

Like most women of her era, Mom devoted a huge amount of time and energy to raising her children and creating a loving home for them and maintaining it at a high level of order and cleanliness. She became a competent cook, Sunday roast beef dinners being a sacred routine for many years, and baked all kinds of cakes and other treats, her “chocolate chip cookies” likely the top fan favourite of her children and grandchildren.

She and Len also went the extra mile to expose their children to interesting experiences that would broaden their horizons. This included regular library visits, numerous plays, concerts, historical sites, sporting events, lots of swimming and skating lessons and even a trip by train for the boys to Expo 68 in Montreal.

Outside of church and school and library, the institution nearest and dearest to Mom’s heart was her bridge club. Every second Tuesday night she and her friends would take turns hosting it and they kept this up for over 50 years. It outlasted several countries, including the Soviet Union, before it ran its course.

Mom overcame many challenges over the years, and her family is the better for it. Despite growing up without a father and in great poverty she was able to create a loving home for her children. She taught and encouraged them to be the best they could be but placed a strong emphasis on being fair and compassionate and living the faith they were raised in. She encouraged their healthy intellectual, emotional and spiritual development but supported them on all the paths they chose for themselves, whether as intellectuals, athletes, or homemakers. She encouraged them to be intellectually curious, to like books and libraries and to use the talents God gave them and above all to be kind.

She lost her eldest daughter, Ann, to cancer while she was still a young adult, a tragedy that devastated the whole family.

Mom never returned to the paid workforce full-time after she started having children, but once they were grown she did some supply teaching from time to time. She volunteered on a grand scale, however. She was a catechism teacher for many years, back when this was still permissible in the public school system. She was also a long-time member of the Catholic Women’s League and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, and helped out at many functions at her children’s schools. She was a canvasser for the Cancer Society, the Heart Fund, and many other causes. During the “boat people” era she was also an enthusiastic ESL tutor for those forced to flee Viet Nam after the communist take-over. She did so well at this she was even offered a job as program coordinator at one point, but thought it would be unfair for her to take a job from someone who might need it more.

Late in life Mom struggled with significant health problems and a general decline in her physical and cognitive powers, particularly her short-term memory. No matter how bad things got for her, though, she always made it clear to her family that she was their world’s biggest fan and would love them forever and she kept her sense of humour (and of wonder) to the end. She adapted to all kinds of life changes that would have laid a lesser woman low, including an ever-widening array of limitations and the need to move out of her beloved family home into a seniors living centre in the fall of 2022.

In raising her children and sustaining her family, Mom was definitely a team player, aided every step of the way (and for almost 70 years!) by her loving husband Len. It is really no surprise that she has now been drafted into a much higher league, where she is surely already on the short-list for all-time MVP status.

Deeply missed by her loving husband Len and their surviving children Laurie, Neil (Peggy), Meg (Eric) and Kate (Corey) and her grandchildren Christophe, Kyle, Chloé and Adrien and by many nieces and nephews. She was so grateful for all the kindness these extended to her in her final years, with a special honorable mention going to her brother Allan’s daughter Cammie. She was predeceased by her parents Frank and Camilla Ryan and siblings Frank, Allan, and Margaret and her beloved daughter Ann and some very dear friends, including most of her bridge club.

There will be a brief service (followed by a reception) at Snow’s Funeral home on Saturday, March 2nd at 10am with a Mass of Christian burial and committal at Gate of Heaven cemetery to take place at a later time.