Obituary of Clare Elizabeth Marion Westbury

February 28, 1937 – London, England

June 30, 2024 – Calgary, Alberta

Clare Elizabeth Marion Westbury (nee Watkins) died peacefully in her home on Sunday, June 30, 2024. She had courageously fought against cancer for nearly four decades. She definitively won that fight with a KO by dying of heart failure.

Clare was born in London, England, on February 28, 1937, the second child and only daughter of four. Six weeks after her birth, the family moved to Newcastle. After school, she moved to London to train as a nurse at University College Hospital, where she qualified as a State Registered Nurse in early 1959. While she was in London, she met a doctor in a bathtub while they were painting a mutual friend’s bathroom. She married that man, Robert Westbury, in July 1959 and lived being adored by him until he died in 2004. They emigrated to Canada in 1961 with their first son and settled in Calgary, AB, where Clare bore three more sons.

During her life, she traveled widely and adventurously. Clare cultivated friends in many different spheres of life and found joy in many different experiences including gardening, playing the piano, speaking French, reading fiction, researching the genealogy of the Herbert (her mother's) and Watkins (her father's) families, and hanging out with her grandchildren. She was generous, kind, warm-hearted, courageous, quick to laugh, and fiercely devoted to those she loved.

She is survived by one brother David Watkins, her four children, Tim, Chris, Jamie, and Eric Westbury; six grandchildren, Nico, Ethan, Grace, Finn, and Jasper Westbury, and Zoe Nicoladis; and many other friends and relatives who will miss her very much.

If friends so desire, please consider donating in Clare’s memory to the Dr. Robert C. Westbury Endowment for Melanoma Research (University of Calgary), which she initiated in memory of her husband, at www.engage.ucalgary.ca/give or to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, www.support.cancer.ca, directing your donation to breast cancer research in memory of Clare.

Condolences, memories, and photos may be shared and viewed with Clare’s family here.

In living memory of Clare Westbury, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Chapel of the Bells, 2720 Centre Street North, Calgary, AB T2E 2V6, Telephone: 403-276-2296.