Margaret Anne Stewart: Ice cream lover. Teacher. Rhubarb thief. Neighbour. Born Sept. 2, 1932, in Sydney, N.S., died Aug. 13, 2023, in Halifax, of natural causes, aged 90.
Margaret Anne StewartSupplied
One night I coerced a reluctant Margaret Anne Stewart into stealing rhubarb and plants from our neighbour’s yard. The building – a conversion to student housing in downtown Halifax – meant the once-pristine garden faced a parking-lot destiny.
“Ohh Cindy … we shouldn’t,” Marg protested, followed by, “What time?” Later that night, she held the flashlight and even giggled as we rescued piles of rhubarb stalks and perennials. At daybreak, a trail of guilty soil led to both of our houses, while the aroma of freshly stewed rhubarb wafted from her little pink house.
Margaret loved sitting on her back stoop with a cup of tea and an oat cake, devouring every word of the morning paper – clipping articles she felt would be interesting to others. Her corner lot in Halifax’s South End meant conversations with passersby and daily interactions with Dalhousie students. After a late night of revelry at a frat house across the street, I dragged a hungover partygoer off his porch to mow Margaret’s lawn. He did so happily, announcing, “We love Margaret!”
Everyone loved Margaret. She never married, yet she had a neighbourhood filled with children and grandchildren. Her gentle presence taught us the importance of respect, of helping without hesitation and to give more than you take. Banknotes deemed no longer legal tender would be tucked into a Bon Voyage note or popped into a coat pocket after my son shovelled her sidewalk. He quickly realized – there was no arguing with Marg.
Simple acts of kindness meant the world to Margaret. A Tupperware container filled with leftover spaghetti would be returned clean the next day with words of gratitude penned in impeccable cursive on a recycled greeting card from 1958. She was as thrifty as she was wise. Everyone and everything were precious and held a purpose in Margaret’s eyes. She nursed half-dead plants, and routinely washed and dried the tennis balls our dogs dropped in her yard before returning them in a recycled Sobeys bag.
Marg studied at Columbia University in New York before receiving a Bachelor of Education from Dalhousie University. She had a natural curiosity and taught elementary grades for decades at the public school down the block and continued teaching long after retirement. I urged her to teach our kids cursive, but she was content to watch them running freely around the block, yelling “Hello Margaret” as they raced by.
One summer, I drove Marg to Ingonish, Cape Breton, where she spent time at her family’s humble cottage. She told stories of golfing on the Highland Links – confessing she wasn’t much of a golfer but loved the hills and the time spent with her father. Ingonish was Marg’s happy place and escorting her home gave me more pleasure than she could imagine.
After my son and I moved from the neighbourhood and the province, communication with low-tech Margaret became achingly difficult. I wrote letters in my best cursive and reminded others to check in, mow the lawn, hang a wreath, deliver leftovers – but lives are busy, and then there was a pandemic. I once called the police to request a wellness check after calls went unanswered and no one came to the door when I asked neighbours to knock. The police found the phone off the hook and Margaret sleeping in the kitchen under the control of a predatory caregiver.
She died in hospital. There was no obituary in her beloved newspaper and no bagpiper blowing, Going Home into the wind. Oh, how this daughter of Scottish immigrants would have loved a bagpiper.
I cherish a photograph of Marg’s beautifully arthritic hands holding the annual gift from her garden – Lily of the Valley wrapped in damp paper towel. Flowers that symbolize humility, purity and a return to happiness. The path from Margaret’s backdoor to ours remains well-worn and forever in my heart.
Cynthia Schultz was once Margaret Stewart’s neighbour.
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