MARY GOLD

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MARY GOLD December 7, 1918 - January 20, 2015 Mary Gold (nee Waldron), aged 96, passed away on January 20, 2015 at the Parkstone Enhanced Care facility in Halifax, NS with loved ones at her side after a long decline. Mary was born on December 7, 1918 in Moreton on the Marsh in the county of Gloucestershire, in the United Kingdom. She grew up on a farm near Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire. Mary always spoke with pride of her father who had been blinded in the First World War but still managed to run his farm successfully. Though she was a farmer's daughter she went into nursing, becoming a registered nurse just in time for the Second World War. She nursed the casualties from the bombing of Coventry and subsequently moved to London where she road a bicycle on her rounds as a district nurse. It was in London where she met and married her first husband, Ernest Gold, a Canadian soldier in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, from Pine Falls in northeastern Manitoba. After Ernest was killed in early 1945 in the Reichswald forest in southern Germany, Mary came to Pine Falls as a war bride in 1946 to live with his family. She arrived in Canada after chasing their 18 month old son David around the deck of the ship, while being sea sick the whole voyage. She subsequently married, George Gold, Ernie's brother, and had a second son, Stephen. Mary joined the staff of the local hospital rising to be Director of Nursing, later moving to Fort St. James in northern British Columbia to assume the same position at the Stuart Lake Hospital. Following her retirement she and her husband returned to Pine Falls where they resided till George died from cancer in 1992. Mary eventually moved to Halifax, NS to be near her son Stephen and his family. She is survived and will be greatly missed by her brother Sid Waldron in Winnipeg, son Stephen Gold (Jennifer Klotz) in Cape Breton, three grandchildren, Jackie (Richard) in Alberta, and John and Ian in Winnipeg, sons of her first son David (Marie) who died in 2013. She also had three great-grandchildren, Alex (6), Emma (4) and Chris (10). There will be no service. Mary will be cremated and her remains suitably interred.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Jan 31, 2015