Obituary of Georgina Helen Matthews
Georgina Helen Matthews
Nee Ross
October 3, 1917 – April 19, 2019
Georgie Matthews was a woman of exceptional beauty, graciousness, thoughtfulness for others, intelligence, musicality, fierce devotion to family, hair-trigger temper and domestic perfectionism.
She was the eldest daughter of Christina Ross and the Rev. Andrew S. Ross, the popular minister of the Montreal West United Church for over 30 years. Her younger sister said that in youth Georgie was “the belle of Montreal West”. She studied History at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, where she met her future husband of 67 years, D. J. Matthews. While at Queen’s, she played basketball, and in her first year threw the basket which won the National Championship for Queen’s in 1935. In her final year she was President of the Levana Society, the Student Council for Women students. Married in 1940, she and Joe first lived in Detroit, MI, but returned to Canada when the government decided in 1942 to accept married men into war service. She and Joe endured 22 months of separation, and their first child (Carol Anne) was born, while he flew overseas as a navigator with the RAF (later RCAF). After the war, they made their permanent home in Guelph, ON, where three more children were born (Basil, Ross, and Grace).
She owned every room she walked into, turning heads with her beauty and drawing comments to her family. With willowy elegance and refinement, she was always impeccably dressed: even during a hospital stay she would be made up and wearing earrings. Her creativity showed especially in sewing for her family—coats and dresses for her girls, evening wear for herself. She gave her life to her family, with utmost loyalty, always forgiving and loving.
She had many lifelong friends and loved the social engagement of community service, acting on Canadian Federation of University Women executives, and, with her husband, providing decades of support to the Guelph Youth Music Centre. She played piano and organ as a young woman and in her forties turned to singing in choirs and light opera. She was choir leader and organist for 10 years at the Arkyll United Church near Guelph and continued playing with the Guelph Pro Musica group well into her 90s.
Dementia overtook her at 95 and she spent her final years in Belmont Long Term Care Facility in Belleville, ON. A memorial service will be held in Guelph in June.
Her legacy to us is high standards in all matters, from ethical action to the placement of a bowl on a table, an avid interest in life around her, unflagging cheerfulness (she never complained), and a sense of beauty and thoughtfulness brought to all manner of life experiences.
She leaves her children Carol Anne (Fred Wien), Basil (Gina), Ross (Evelyn), and Grace (Jim Clare), her sister Hope Ross-Papezik, her grandchildren Erika, Otis, Jonathan, Daniel, Malcolm, David, Chris, and Victoria, and several nieces and nephews. She was pre-deceased by her husband, D.J. Matthews, and her granddaughter, Lindsey Clare. How she loved us, and we her. Arrangements entrusted to Steele Funeral Home, Moira Street Chapel, Belleville (613-968-2273)
Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Georgina
Helen
Matthews 1917 2019..
Death notice for the town of: Belleville, Province: Ontario