Soprano’s song heard for 61 years
She put everyone ahead of herself
Mary Margaret Neville, a talented singer with an angelic voice who friends and family say was generous beyond words, lived exactly 61 years. Born in 1952, Neville died peacefully, having a heart attack in her sleep, on Mar. 11, 2013 — her birthday.
Her older brother, Michael Neville, was with her to celebrate what he thought would only be a birthday, but ended up being the last day of her life.
A four-course lunch at the convalescent home where Mary Marg, as her family called her, was staying led to Michael and his daughter presenting “a doting and fun aunt,” who would always babysit pets or nieces and nephews, with funny birthday cards.
They had a few laughs and exchanged a few stories with the woman who put everyone else ahead of herself.
“In the evening she laid down to rest and she closed her eyes and never woke up,” Michael said.
“I think the heart just said it’d had enough.”
Michael remembers his kid sister as a mischievous, fun-loving girl who always had a voice, but it did take some time to develop.
“I don’t think any of us fully understood it or appreciated it until she got some actual training,” he said of his sister’s soprano.
Their whole family was musical, but it was Mary Marg who took actual voice lessons.
“You could see the difference between her voice and our voices,” Michael said, laughing.
It was a talent that Mary Marg took with her to the University of Windsor, where she studied theatrical arts.
Hilary Blackmore, a former classmate and lifelong friend, remembers the day she met Mary Marg.
Blackmore thinks it was likely a vocal class on the first day but she knows for certain that it wasn’t Mary Marg’s voice that caught her attention.
“There wasn’t much interaction, we were all really quite frightened,” Blackmore said.
“I do remember that Mary was very beautiful and that was the first thing that struck me about her.”
When they were in school, Mary Marg was in a production of Ring Round the Moon and the role required her to tango.
“Mary was not a great dancer,” Blackmore confessed. Yet, that didn’t stop her from impressing everyone with her performance.
“She worked until her feet bled to get that right and she was quite stunning.”
That voice, though, was always the star. “It was an angelic voice, there was no doubt about that,” Blackmore said. “It was one of those ones that you don’t hear very often, not from anyone.”
Blackmore herself didn’t have a great singing voice, but she could carry a tune, so she’d sometimes sing a melody and Mary Marg “would do all of these extraordinary things around it.”
“And it would be a marvel and a joy just to be in the middle of that,” Blackmore said.
After stints performing musical theatre and being a fixture on the stage with the Great Canadian Theatre Company, where she was a founding cast member, Mary Marg eventually moved to a role behind the scenes in production with the CBC before trying her hand at being a legal secretary and finally a personal support worker for the elderly.
It was her final role that let her lead the way on group singsongs and once again soar right through all the high notes.