Roberts, Mary Anne (Mamie). Mamie passed away peacefully at the Good Samaritan Hillside Village on September 25, 2008. She was 86 years of age.
She was born Mary Anne Moss on September 9, 1922. Mamie was the middle child of 16 born to Bernard and Bridget Moss (nee Travers) of the parish of Aghyaran, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. In February of 1946, at the age of 23 and while working in Belfast, she met William Roberts, a soldier of the Princess Pat’s Canadian Light Infantry waiting to be repatriated to Canada after serving as an anti aircraft gunner near London during World War II. They were married on March 6, 1946 at St. Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church on the Antrim Road in West Belfast, shortly after which William was returned to Canada, leaving her to wait for the call for an available berth on one of the many special boats bringing war brides to their new homes in Canada.Mamie left Belfast in November of 1946, on board the ocean liner Aquitania.
After crossing the Atlantic to Halifax, she traveled by train across Canada to be reunited with her husband on their farm near Barrhead, Alberta. Over
the next twenty years, she became mother to six sons and six daughters. In 1967, after the loss of their eldest daughter Mary in a drowning accident,
the family sold the farm and moved initially to Revelstoke, and after a few months to Salmon Arm, where she made her home for the last 40 years.
She was predeceased by her daughter Mary in 1965, by her husband William in 1977, and by her son Ronald in 2003. She leaves to mourn her passing her children: Patrick (Kathy) of South Slocan; Maureen, of Victoria: Eileen (Darrell) Loewen, of Vernon; Jim, of Salmon Arm; Dennis, of Salmon Arm; William (Linda) of Vancouver, Shiela (York) Robertson, of Delta, Mona Bradley of Salmon Arm; Kevin, of Salmon Arm; and Theresa Tomkulak of Delta.
She leaves behind 19 grandchildren, 7 great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews in Canada, the US, the UK, and Ireland.
A Mass of Christian Burial was held on Monday, September 29th at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Salmon Arm, with Father George La Grange, OMI, presiding. Internment followed at Mt. Ida Cemetery. Arrangements were by Bowers Funeral Home, Salmon Arm, B.C.
The family wish to express their great and sincere gratitude to all those who were a comfort and a help during Mamie’s final days and after her passing.
Email condolences may be sent to
sympathy@bowersfuneralservice.com