Out of the Cold volunteer ‘a very lovely lady’
‘Sister’ Margaret Firth, the longtime co-ordinator of the meal program for the homeless, died Feb. 23
Margaret Firth may not have believed it was a big deal to give back to her community, but the people she helped would have begged to differ.
Firth volunteered with numerous organizations, but is perhaps best known as one of the first co-ordinators of Hamilton Out of the Cold, a service that provides meals to the homeless and low-income people at a number of churches.
Her son Tyler said her volunteering came from her Anglican faith to help the disadvantaged, but Firth’s ways at Out of the Cold earned the mother of four the title “Sister” Margaret from other volunteers and guests.
“The volunteers loved her and the guests loved her,” said Sister Carole Anne Guay, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s who co-founded the program with the late Gloria Colizza.
“The guests just started calling her ‘Sister’ and, as she believed it gave her some status with the guests, she let them think she was a nun.”
She recalled Firth telling her of running into a guest at a mall and telling her husband Douglas to step away from her.
“She never let on,” chuckled
Sister Carole Anne.
Firth — who was also involved with the Cancer Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation — died Feb. 23, a month after turning 86. The Brownie leader was also active in her church and at her children’s schools.
Sister Carole Anne recalled Firth was reluctant to take on the job of co-ordinator when she approached her in 1997. Firth was one of the first volunteers and had only been with the program for five months when she was asked to oversee the program in the basement of James Street Baptist Church.
Firth served as co-ordinator for 18 years until 2015. She would make sure the dining room was clean, the cutlery was out and the food was prepared in time. She would put in a 12hour day, or more, on the day of the meal. “She did a marvellous job,” said Sister Carole Anne. “Oh my goodness, there was never any worry ... She was a very lovely lady.”
In a 2014 Spec profile on Out of the Cold, Firth was noted as working the room and talking with guests to see if they were enjoying some homemade soup. By this time, she was running the program at St. Stephen of Hungary Roman Catholic Church on Barton Street East.
“I tell them not to fill up on the soup or they won’t have room for the dinner. They say, ‘Yes, Mom,’” the then-80-year-old told the Spec.
Firth credited her volunteer team with the success of the meal program, but volunteer Margaret Chisholm credited Firth. “Without Firth, we would fall apart; we only do it for the boss,” Chisholm said.
Firth was born Jan. 1, 1934 in Hamilton to Arthur and Sarah Townson. Her father was a carpenter at the Westinghouse plant on Longwood Road and her mother was a homemaker. They were both active in the Anglican Church community and volunteered at Camp Artaban, a church summer camp in the Dundas Valley.
Their daughter also volunteered at the camp, which closed in 1967.
Firth attended Earl Kitchener and Ryerson public schools and Westdale high school. She went to teachers’ college and her first job was teaching grades 1 to 4 at a two-room schoolhouse in Jerseyville. She moved to Hillfield school but left there in 1960 to raise a family.
Her family said she was an institution in the southwest Hamilton area, not only for her community work, but for teaching baking to neighbourhood children and walking her dogs. When she slowed down in her old age, neighbours stepped forward to help her.
When his father was alive, Tyler recalled, “If someone did something for them, she would make them a pie.”
One of the other groups Firth was involved in was West Willow, described by her son as a home for men with brain injuries. “She’d have them over for dinner,” said Tyler, 58, a family service worker with Brant Family and Children Services. “It was always something. She used to dispatch us to West
Willow to play euchre.”
Firth also worked between 1990-95 as a constituency assistant to Hamilton West MPP Richard Allen when he served as a cabinet minister in the NDP government of Bob Rae.
Janice Ormond, executive director of the Hamilton Out of the Cold program, had known Firth since 2006. She called her “an extraordinary lady” who “was a friend to everyone.”
Indeed, her son Tyler and Sister Carole Anne said Firth’s funeral was packed and people spilled over into the choir pews.
“Even after she retired, she still came into the office to see if she could do anything,” said Ormond, who oversees meal programs in nine churches. “She was always thinking of us. She was a real inspiration to people. She was like a mom.”
She said Firth would come to board meetings with homemade biscuits, scones and other baked goods. When Firth stepped down from the board, board members joked about getting her to stay on to keep the baked goods coming.
Firth is survived by her daughter Dayna, sons Tyler, Matthew and Fraser, six grandchildren and sister Patricia. She was predeceased by her husband Douglas, who died in 2012.