Condolences
Marian was my Opera pal. When I first started working at Calgary Opera she was a little reluctant to get to know me but when we connected on our shared love of cats the chatting just never stopped. It was such a pleasure to have her pop by the office for a little visit and chat about getting all her ‘Opera business in order’. We’d then chat about her Gypsy, and I would tell her tales of my kitty Louis who when I told her of just how spoiled he was she dubbed him King Louis and the name stuck.
Marian fiercely loved her best friend, Bud. A photo of him on our Opera board sat outside my office and she would so often pause and look at it with so much love. She did miss him dearly. Opera made her think of Bud, at the last Opera we attended together just a few weeks ago she told me she was grateful it wasn’t one of the sad classics as she didn’t want to cry.
She really was humble never wanting anyone to ‘Fuss’ over her. My mom even tried to help her along to the car and open the door and she said ‘no, don’t do that don’t fuss over me I’ve got to keep moving these ‘old bones’.
Marian was funny! I spent one Valentine’s Day with her, Art, Eileen and probably her favorite McPhee Artist Jonathon Kirby. The evening was called ‘Death by Chocolate’ she and I joked fondly about that throughout dinner. She also told me some other more politically geared jokes which I will keep between us but I can still hear her laugh.
I will remember her always when looking at my MEOW calendar she got me each year. My latest is on my fridge now and I will now purchase in her memory each year.
I will miss you dearly friend and will still expect to see you up the big hill on Meredith Rd. I hope you’re up there having the best time with Bud, Eileen and maybe even telling some good jokes with our other Opera friend Bob (or as you called him Bobby).
Shevonne
I first met Marian in the 90s through Soroptimist International, a women’s service club we both belonged to. But what my husband Dave, and I, most enjoyed talking to Marian about was music. She played the violin and viola in the Civic Symphony for years, was a huge supporter of the CPO and Calgary Opera, and loved anything conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Her husband, Bud Williams, shared her passion for music. When Calgary Opera started its program for young artists, now known as the McPhee Artist Development Program, she became an avid “adopter” of young singers. They had, of course, to share her other passion, which was for cats. We last saw Marian in late January at a reception following the performance of The R(Evolution) of Steve Jobs at Calgary Opera, and she was “in her element”. We’ll miss her!
Dave & Bev Foy
A sweet, kind lady who didn't take herself too seriously. I knew her as a Sharon Lutheran Church member and a fan of lutefisk dinners at the Scandinavian Centre. We ran into each other recently at North Hill Shopping Centre and, as always, had a nice chat.
On behalf of MEOW Foundation, we wish to express our deepest condolences to Marian’s family and friends. We will miss her support, good cheer and her pop-in visits to our events, markets and thrift shop. She was such an accomplished and humble woman and we, in turn, were humbled by her joy and praise for the work we do. She endured and carried on after the loss of Bud, Gypsy (her cat) and her sister Eileen. Her little photo album of Gypsy was always at the ready for all to admire Gypsy’s great pianist skills and feline repertoire music. We will think of Marian every time we look at our Adoption Centre Isolation Room plaque in honour of Gypsy, and we will miss our greatest cheerleader, supporter, cat lover and friend.
Debbie Nelson
MEOW Foundation
Marian and I have been friends since the mid 1960's when we both worked at the Calgary General Hospital as Lab. Technicians. Over the years we enjoyed a close friendship and I have such good remembrances as our trip to Europe, attending the
Flames hockey games and many social events. I will miss her cheery phone calls and the fun times we had. My condolences to all Bud's family.
Jo. McDonald.
I first met Marian and Bud when they came to MEOW to adopt a cat in the early 2000’s. Marian and Bud fell in love with Gypsy, a very thin mother cat found in an industrial area who put every ounce of her energy into keeping her kittens alive. Talk about a rags to riches story. Gypsy got her own sunroom, countless cat beds and cardboard boxes, anything she wanted, even her own cat sized violin.
Right from the time of Gypsy’s adoption Marian and Bud supported MEOW Foundation in so many ways which we were all very grateful for. Marian bought so many MEOW calendars that Gypsy was featured in the 2011 calendar. To honor both Bud and Gypsy in 2017, Marian sponsored the Medical Isolation Room in the MEOW Adoption Centre.
Marian was always interested in the MEOW projects, rescues, adoptions, MEOW Thrift Shop, anything and everything feline. Our latest conversations were about the latest feral colony I was working with and Marian made sure each cat got spayed and neutered. I will miss our email chit chats.
Thank you Marian, Bud and Gypsy for everything you did to help MEOW Foundation. We will think of you every time we see Gypsy’s plaque at the Isolation room door.
Jacqueline (Jake) Forrest
I will always remember when I first met Marian. I was volunteering for MEOW at a booth up at North Hill and this delightful woman came up and immediately we bonded over our love for our cats. She showed me pictures of her sweet Gypsy and I shared pictures of my Nick & Stella. From that chance meeting a friendship began and grew over the new few years.
The last couple of years were not easy for Marian and yet she was always optimistic that things would get better. I really wish that she could have waited until things did get better and I am very sad that she left us before that happened.
Although I didn't know Marian for a long time, I do treasure the time she was in my life.
MariLynn Montgomery
Marian was loved & will be missed by her friends at St Matthew Luthern Church
I wanted to express my gratefulness for Marian.
After my mom died, I fully expected my dad to die of a broken heart within a year. And then Marian came into his life, again.
I say came into his life “again” because Marian’s life was periodically entwined into Daddy’s family. Marian was a good friend of Auntie Flora, Daddy’s older sister. My dad was a surgeon at the Children's Hospital in the 50s, during the polio epidemic. Auntie Flora was the dietitian there, and Marian was a lab tech. Marian would often, as they say, bump into my dad when they were both doing their rounds. When Auntie Flora took a holiday, Marian stepped into her position as the acting dietitian.
My mother was the concert master of the Calgary Symphony Orchestra in the 50s and 60s. Marian played in the second violin section and tole me that she was "in awe of and afraid of" my mother. Daddy was heavily involved in fundraising for the Symphony. As well as playing, Marian did volunteer work for the Symphony.
I do not know which year Marian decided to go back to University to study business, but she did so, and became a purchasing agent for the Alberta government. This very good job allowed her to purchase a house, and provided for her retirement.
Annually, she travelled solo to Salzberg and other places in Europe to indulge her love of music.
Marian was a very smart lady, although she was ridiculously self-deprecating.
Later in life, she learned to play the viola in order to participate in an amateur Symphony Orchestra in Calgary. This was far more difficult than it seems.
Marian and I shared a love of horses. She had grown up with horses on a farm in Bowness. When she came to visit our acreage in the Laurentians for the first time, Maria, my youngest, volunteered to take Marian for a ride on horseback. Unknown to me, Maria took Marian lengthwise along the top of the beaver dam on our property. Marian impressed me both as a rider and as one very spunky lady!
After she left with Daddy for Calgary, we discovered that Marian had kept her engagement ring in her pocket the whole time she was with us, because she was embarrassed by its opulence!
She was indeed my dad’s soulmate for 10 years, until his death.
She continually fussed over him like a mother hen. and he loved it. Losing Buddy was very hard on Marian, and she grieved for years.
And then came COVID, and poor Marian became truly isolated.
And then, as you all know, during Covid, baby Sister Eileen developed inflammatory myopathy, and eventually succumbed from it, and her husband Art suffered a stroke. Marian devoted herself to looking after both of them, in spite of being quite elderly herself. She was terrified that she would be come ill and not be help with Art and Eileen.
Marian had various quirks and eccentricities! She loved her cowboy boots! She was enraptured by Opera, and was very active in Opera Calgary, even taking bit parts in its productions. She loves classical music and was knowledgeable about composers, conductors, and indeed the symphonic repertoire. She was selective in her musical appreciation. There existed music she hated!
She adored kitties, cats, and all creatures feline. And she loved owls.
She was convinced that Alberta was God's country, and had strong political views. We agreed to never discuss politics.
I just wanted to adda few words to dear Marian’s funeral memory space.
I hope others will follow with their memories too.
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