Constance Marion Darby

Age 85, of Halifax, passed away on October 28, 2021 at the Victoria General Hospital.

Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Connie was the daughter of D. Gordon Willet and Elsie Henderson Willet. She is survived by her children Leslie Wagar (Terry), of Halifax, and Andrew Darby (Lisa Baker), of Miami. Connie also had three grandchildren, Emily and Katie Wagar and Benjamin Darby.

Besides her parents, Connie was predeceased by her beloved husband, Peter Darby; her brother, David Henderson Willet; her aunt, J. Marion Henderson; and her grandparents, Arthur and Laura Henderson and David and Annie Willet.

Connie graduated with a B.A. in English and History from Dalhousie University in 1958 where she met her future husband. After graduation, she moved to Calgary where she worked in the advertising department of The Hudson’s Bay Company before returning to Saint John. Connie and Peter married in 1959 at which time she became a fulltime homemaker (and then mother), and he practiced law with her father. They moved to Halifax in 1969 when Peter became a professor at Dalhousie Law School.

Connie had many interests and was a long-time volunteer at a number of organizations. She was a competitive bridge player and played in a variety of different groups. She loved reading and participated in more than one book club. Despite her uneasy relationship with computers, she enthusiastically researched and wrote papers for her Art Study group. Her membership in the Dalhousie Women’s Club included bridge and book clubs as well as the Gourmet Club. While in Saint John, Connie volunteered with the Y’s Menettes; throughout her years in Halifax she volunteered with UNICEF, the Nova Scotia Museum, the Junior League and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS). She particularly enjoyed her work on the children’s magazine Ahoy, published in the 1970s by the Junior League. Her passion for gardening, flowers and art was evident in the bouquets she created for the IWK hospital gift shop and her participation in Art in Bloom and the Art Tour committee at the AGNS.

Connie and Peter loved to travel and visited many spots in Europe, Australia and New Zealand as well as the United States and Canada. One of her favourite destinations was her family cottage in Ononette, New Brunswick which she and her family visited every summer until it was lost to fire in 2015. Since Peter’s death, Connie and two of her good friends made many trips throughout Nova Scotia, very much enjoying the summer staycations that COVID-19 required.

Connie requested that there not be a memorial service and stated that her many good friends had done enough by the wonderful cards they sent, reminiscing about the interesting experiences they had shared together through their years of friendship.