LUGAR DUNLOP HEMBERY STOKES, Gwendolyn Janet Elizabeth
January 22, 1928 - December 4, 2020
Gwendolyn Janet Elizabeth Lugar/dunlop/hembery/ Stokes. Our mother Gwen passed away as a result of COVID Pneumonia on Friday, December 4, 2020 in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
The second child of Faraday and Betty Lugar, Gwen grew up in Bedford, Nova Scotia with her brothers Bobby and Tony and sister Sheila. Gwen was very athletic. One day playing tennis at the Halifax Waegwoltic Club she encountered Blair Dunlop and that was it! After university they married, Blair received a job offer in Toronto and off they went together.
Scott was born in Toronto in 1951, interrupting Gwen’s short career as a gym teacher. She proceeded to give birth to four more boys (Blake, Craig, Reid and Laird) over the next ten years while the family moved from Toronto to Burlington, then to Ottawa. Luckily for the boys, the family settled in the quiet village of Rockcliffe Park.
Gwen’s sons were athletes. It is hard to imagine how she got through the days dealing with the chaos of five competitive boys playing two or three sports per season. The frantic pace never let up through moves to and from Vancouver as Blair rose through the insurance business.
In the 1960’s Gwen was in her element, driving around in her Firebird convertible to and from the tennis courts, hockey rinks and ski slopes, hosting parties for family and friends (and occasionally forgetting to thaw out the Christmas turkey).
Gwen had style. She was not always organized and relied on her go-with-the flow, easy-going nature, which endeared her to everyone she met. This, coupled with her good humour and gentle grace, helped her sons to understand what is truly important in life: love.
Gwen was a very kind and gentle soul, sometimes caught off guard. She was extremely proud of her children, their accomplishments and who they became as individuals. She was a loving and generous mother, mother-in-law, aunt and grandmother. Even as her faculties dimmed, she maintained her innate characteristics as the much-loved Granny Gwennie. Her sons and their wives Joanne, Nora, Mary, Amanda and Elizabeth, honoured Gwen with 14 grandchildren, (Brodie, Emily, Adam, Sasha, Connor, Cole, Torrie, Victoria, Lisa, Rachel, Kate, Patrick, Natalie, and Grant) and through them, Gwen had 22 great-grandchildren.
Gwen’s three husbands, Blair Dunlop, Charles Hembery and Sydney Stokes all predeceased her.
Our entire family will always truly cherish and love our unique, wonderful and entertaining Gwennie. She will always be in our hearts.
We would like to add a special thanks to Craig and Mary Dunlop and Laird and Elizabeth Dunlop for their devoted care and attention to Gwen as she lived near them during her final years in Pinehurst. Scott, Blake and Reid relied on them to ’be there’.
Our family is very grateful for the attentive professional services provided by the nurses at the Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst. They did everything they could to ease Gwen’s distress and ensured that each of us had the opportunity to say goodbye.
We are also thankful for the kind and caring nursing team that took care of Gwen at the Whispering Oaks Nursing Home over the last few years.
Please consider honouring Gwen’s memory by laughing and remembering that life is short but still very sweet. We miss you dear Momma. For those wishing to make a donation in Gwen’s memory, the family gratefully asks that you consider a charity that is on the front lines fighting Covid-19: In Canada: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/donateto-coronavirus-outbreakresponse/. In the US: https://www.nytimes.com/article/corona virus-how-to-help-donationscharities.html.