Nettie Walda Black
6 October 1919 – 1 August 2019
Nettie Walda Black, died peacefully on 1st August, in her 100th year, in Inglewood, ON. Nettie is the daughter of the late William Hyslop and Henrietta Greer, and the devoted and caring wife of the late Ward Emerson Black (Royal Canadian Navy, World War II, and the New Brunswick Power Commission).
Nettie was born in Moncton and grew up in Gunningsville and Lower Turtle Creek, NB. After marriage in 1941, she moved about the Maritimes with her husband: to St Martins, NB and Halifax during the War; and after, to St Stephen, Grand Lake, and Chatham, NB. While living in Chatham from 1956 to 1983 Nettie faithfully attended and contributed to the life of Newcastle United Baptist Church and, from 1974, was a founding member and secretary-treasurer of its daughter church in Chatham, Wellington Street Baptist Church.
Following the death of her husband in 1982 she moved about Canada, living with her daughter Nancy: to Toronto, attending Spring Garden Baptist Church, 1983-1986, and, when Nancy worked on pastoral staff, First Alliance Church, Scarborough, 1986-1992; then to St Albert, AB, attending St Albert Alliance Church, 1992-1998; and back to Toronto in 1998, attending Rexdale Alliance Church.
A homemaker of many talents – fishing, hunting, carpentry, cooking – Nettie was welcoming and hospitable. There was always another place at her table, whether family, friend, or stranger. Nettie, while appearing shy, was a gregarious woman. Though she bore only one daughter, she gathered others. The nursing supervisor in an intensive care unit in Alberta became suspicious as various women of about the same age, and bearing no family resemblance, kept coming to visit ‘their mother’. «Just how many daughters does your mother have?» the supervisor asked Nancy. As a nonagenarian she endeared herself to the younger women of her weekly Bible study group.
Nettie loved to travel – a hunting trip with her father and brothers to Salmon River or with her husband to the family camp near Salisbury, a weekend get-away with her daughter in Banff or Jasper, a summer car trip from St Albert to Whitehorse along the Top of the World Highway and on to Anchorage, a vacation in the Okanagan, a cruise up the Inside Passage or through the Caribbean, a seniors’ bus tour to Niagara-on-the-Lake or to Pennsylvania Amish country, a train ride across the Prairies, a weekend cruise on Georgian Bay, a jaunt to Dairy Queen, or a quick trip to the mall. Taught to drive at 16 by her father, Nettie was never without a car and in her sixties conquered rush-hour traffic on the Don Valley Parkway and the 401; at eighty she voluntarily relinquished her driver’s licence and sold her Chevy Malibu.
Nettie was a woman of great compassion. At home, she selflessly cared for her aged father, later, an elder sister, her mother-in-law, and then her husband until his death in 1982. While in Rexdale she knitted mittens, scarves, and toques for children in the Tandridge Community. And she wept when told of children being prostituted in Toronto.
Nettie was a woman of faith. Throughout her whole life she was committed to following Jesus and was anchored in him. Rather than quarrel with a strong-willed teenage daughter she would go away and pray. In later life, Nancy confessed, «I didn’t have a chance once my mother started talking to God!» Nettie’s was a life of quiet confidence in God’s love and goodness.
Nettie, the last surviving member of her immediate family, was predeceased by her only child – a friend, co-worker, and confident, Nancy Elaine Scott; her sisters: Ella Lorena (late Stockford O’Blenis & late Bliss Lewis) and Edith May (late Blair Munro Smith); and brothers: Corp. Fred Arnold (WWII, Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (M.G.), R.C.I.C., France 1944; late Agnes Cecilia Gahan-McCormack), Bertram (Bert) Elsworth (WWII veteran, Private US Army; late Greta May Leaman), and John Murray (Doris Northrup, surviving).
Nettie is survived by her niece Joan (the late Douglas) Hyslop of Hardwicke, great-nieces and nephews; son-in-law Peter of Stonehaven; by a rich circle of women who loved her as a mother and friend – in St Albert, Cheryl, Helen, Vickie, and Darlene; in Ajax, Betty; in Rexdale, the women from her Bible Study group.
Thanks to Lynda and the late Peter Wood, Anne Bode, and Ruby Isaac, who took more than a special interest in Nettie in her later years, and especially to Pastor Wayne and Betty Kerr.
Nettie’s remains will be transferred to Adams Funeral Home, 140 King St., Miramichi, NB, with interment in Miramichi Cemetery, Miramichi on Monday, August 12, 2019 at 11 AM with Pastor Wayne Kerr officiating.
At Nettie’s request, in lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Ratanak International, Box 81038, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5H 4K1, or online at www.ratanak.org (caring for -trafficked children in Cambodia) or to a charity of your choice. Arrangements are entrusted to Adams Funeral Home Ltd., 140 King St., Miramichi, telephone (506) 773-3492 or messages of condolence may be sent online to www.adamsfh.ca
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Nettie W Black 2019..
Décès pour la Ville: Miramichi, Province: Nouveau-Brunswick