Died August 18, 2021 at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in her 96 th year, surrounded by family, after, in her words, "a long and happy life". Dear mother of Mark Parr of Oakville; Kate Parr of Windsor (Kelvin Leddy); and Daniel Parr of Toronto (Nancy McNaughton). Loving grandmother of Sam and Max McNaughton-Parr of Toronto. Predeceased by her twin sister Elizabeth Horwood (2002) and her brothers Michael Kirby (2018) and Christopher Kirby (2018).
Cynthia Lois Kirby Parr was born in Quebec to Edith Winnifred and Guy Hurlston Kirby. Her early years were spent in Riverbend (now Alma) on Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec; in Eastbourne, England, and in Toronto as a boarder at The Bishop Strachan School. In 1940, her family moved to Westmount, where a short walk from home, she and her siblings could practice skiing, attend plays, or see Oscar Peterson in the Johnny Holmes Orchestra on Saturday nights. On weekends, she loved to take the "ski train" to the Laurentians to ski or canoe.
At twenty-five, she married, settling first in Liverpool, England for two years, followed by moves to Vancouver, Edmonton, Windsor, Ottawa, and finally Oakville, Ontario, where she became a longtime resident.
Following her retirement, she continued her studies of Art History and French; volunteered as a docent at Oakville Galleries; organized many art excursions; camped on ice floes in the Arctic; cross-country skied and canoed in the Laurentians; visited art museums and galleries in New York and Philadelphia; travelled to Egypt; whale-watched and birded on Grand Manan Island, and created a beautiful garden.
Always an avid reader, in her later years she also continued to enjoy opera and jazz, theatre, crosswords, films, the expansive view of the lake from her apartment, and especially her friends and family.
Interment has taken place in the Garden of Remembrance at St. Jude's Church, Oakville.
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