Maria (Both) Pall

With great love but with temporal sadness, I announce that my “Mama” went to be with her Lord, in her 98th year, on Friday, February 19, 2021, while under the kind and loving care of all of the LTC staff at Streetsville Care Community. Predeceased by her husband Sam (1989), she will be greatly missed by her loving family, Edward and Dawna, cherished grandson Steven and Elisabeth and her precious granddaughter Lisa. Ron and Carol Voyce (Marchildon) and their son, “Cousin Kenny”, will also recall being together at many happy family celebrations. She is also remembered with love by her nieces, Marika Both and Marti Bartusne in Budapest, and her nephew Elemer Pall, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her special company will be sadly missed by our loving and faithful family friend, Laura Blatchins.

Having emigrated with her late husband Sam (1989) from Hungary to England in 1948 and then to Canada in 1950; she was always a diligent worker, at many times having two jobs, but regardless, she was always present as a loving and dedicated wife, nurturing mother and a truly "grand" grandmother. She was especially close to her many lifelong friends and their families, like Marta Mikula, Charlotte Szegedy and Maureen Ayling, to name but a few. She was always admired and well liked by her co-workers and also by her many daily acquaintances.

Whether at her position in guest services at Woodbine and Greenwood Racetracks, for some twenty years, or in the home setting, she said and always practiced a simple and wise principle; that any work task should always be done wholeheartedly, to the best of one’s physical and mental abilities. Laziness was just not in her vocabulary!

She had a very strong character, some would arguably say, “stubborn”, but she fervently confronted her various life challenges, readily expressing her thoughts, beliefs and opinions, about a variety of relevant matters, always in a caring, but mostly in a rather matter-of-fact way. She will be fondly remembered by all for her genuine warmth and loving kindness, especially when her delicious, traditional Hungarian home cooking was involved.

As a closing salutation in Hungarian, on almost all of the many greeting cards which my mother received from me, is this message from my heart, which still applies today:

“Sok, Sok Szeretettel Mindig,”   = “Lots and Lots of Love Always,”

In light of the current global health situation, our family is planning a Celebration of Life Remembrance, in the near future, followed by an internment of ashes ceremony, at Park Lawn Cemetery, in Etobicoke, Ontario.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NIV)

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.