Slain grandmother gets local honour
Friends and family gather to remember Peggy Ann Smith, gunned down last summer
Tears mixed with tributes Thursday as friends and family of Peggy Ann Smith renamed a Riverside neighbourhood laneway in honour of the grandmother gunned down there last August.
Lorie Smith, one of her daughters, told the crowd on Kintyre Ave., west of Broadview Ave., that her mother prayed daily for a long list of people and always concluded with: “And pray for everybody.”
“Mom, your life was taken from us in a senseless act of gun violence and all we have to live with is your memories and your love for all of us and our life will never be the same,” her daughter said, sisters Loretta and Lisa at her side. “I just hope that everyone will remember her.”
The Smith family thanked the Don Mount Court community, more than 200 members of which signed a petition calling for the lane-naming, and said the mother to three and grandmother to eight would have been amazed at the crowd and tributes to her.
“It really shows that communities can come together, and I really just don’t know what to say,” said Lorie Smith, adding that local kids all called her “Nan.”
“We are truly going to miss my mom’s beautiful smile, her warm hugs and her encouraging words and support and understanding. But most of all we are going to miss her love.”
Smith was sitting at a patio table enjoying the warm August evening with a daughter and two grandkids when gunfire erupted.
Police say she was an innocent bystander and unintended target of two men who fled to an SUV parked on Hamilton St., just south of Dundas St.
No arrests have been made and police urge anyone with information about the gunmen, or a group of men who were the apparent targets, to contact them.
Mayor John Tory and city councillor Paula Fletcher joined the community in releasing orange and white balloons when the new sign was uncovered.
The three daughters fought tears as Fletcher presented them with copies of the sign.
Jerome Smith, Peggy Ann’s grandson, said the big tight-knit family is struggling without its matriarch. Amazing community support, and the laneway naming, are helping them continue, he added.
“For years to come her name will live on.”