Smart, Helen
HELEN SMART
(1928-2022)
It is with much sorrow and deep love that we mourn the passing of our beloved mother Helen Smart, at age 94, on October 20, 2022.
Our mother is survived by her daughters, Darla (Bill) McDonell, Cheryl (Colin) Brown and her son John C. Smart (Susan Cook). Her sister Joan Beers, four grandchildren, four great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews will miss our mother’s smile and her enjoyment of their phone calls and visits.
Helen was the eldest daughter of Charles Brooks and Louise Brooks and lived her early life in Toronto where she met and later married her late husband John Smart in 1947. For many years, she actively supported her husband’s very successful trucking and cartage company while also maintaining the family home and caring for her growing family. Our mother, like her mother, was a passionate gardener and could be found happily tending to her flowers from sunrise to sunset. Her quietly talented nature allowed her to create delicious meals, knit gifts for friends and relatives, still find time to keep an immaculate & beautifully decorated home, which made our mother a truly gifted lady. Her love of the Toronto Maple Leafs & the Toronto Blue Jays allowed her to experience the roller coaster ride of emotions with these two famous sports teams. Along with her son John, she could tell friends that they had witnessed (on black & white TV) the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup (1967). As a keen follower of Canada’s talented figure skaters, one of her special sports moments occurred when Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won a gold medal in ice dancing at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in 2010 and again in 2018.
In 1988, Helen and her late husband John moved to Creemore and fell in love with this picturesque and friendly village. In 2015, after sixty-eight enjoyable years of marriage our Dad passed away after a brief illness. In the last few years of our mother’s very full life, she lived at the Blue Mountain Manor in Stayner and then was cared for by the compassionate and wonderfully dedicated staff at the Coleman Care Centre in Barrie.
We, the children of Helen and John Smart, believe that we were possibly the luckiest people in the world to have had them as our parents. They grounded us with really sensible social value. They reinforced the importance of having a common sense attitude in our view of everyday life. They were firm but fair in exercising their disciplinary duties. They gave us an appreciation for the benefits of leisure and the enjoyment of outdoor activities. Regardless of how busy their lives were, they found time to go dancing on a Saturday night with their friends. They gave us an appreciation of how hard work is important in achieving success and happiness in your daily life, and their love for each other instilled the same value in us when we found spouses or partners.
Visitation will take place on Friday November 4, 2022, from 7-9 p.m. A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday November 5, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. at the Fawcett Funeral Home in Creemore, Ontario. Interment will be at the Creemore Union Cemetery following the Celebration of Life. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Mum’s honour to the Creemore Horticultural Society c/o P.O. Box 1220 Creemore, ON., L0M 1G0. Friends may visit Helen’s online Book of Memories at www.fawcettfuneralhomes.com
