MEMORIAL: We will be holding a memorial for Terry on Saturday, April 27th, starting at 2 PM, at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Avenue, Directions. Please join us. If you'd like to speak, tell a story or sing a song let us know. webermark@gmail.com (613) 986-4132Thérèse Marie Weber (Bergeron) July 3, 1931 - March 20, 2019Passed peacefully Wednesday March 20, 2019. Beloved mother of Paul (Heather) and Mark. Proud grandmother of... see moreMEMORIAL: We will be holding a memorial for Terry on Saturday, April 27th, starting at 2 PM, at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Avenue, Directions. Please join us. If you'd like to speak, tell a story or sing a song let us know. webermark@gmail.com (613) 986-4132
Thérèse Marie Weber (Bergeron)
July 3, 1931 - March 20, 2019
Passed peacefully Wednesday March 20, 2019. Beloved mother of Paul (Heather) and Mark. Proud grandmother of Daniel, Zachary, Zoe and Cameron. Remembered by extended family Renée, Henri, Olivier, Laurent and many others. Terry lived a life of compassion and caring, inspiring those around her. The family thanks staff at Villagia and Carefor who helped in her final days. Donations to a charity of your choice in Thérèse’s name.
Thérèse's parents, Euclide and Rose-Anna (Marcil), were Québécois. In 1930 they moved their family of 10 children to Judge, a farming community in northern Ontario, partly because Euclide wanted his children to learn English. Despite fears of a possible descent into atheism and a loss of their mother tongue, the family continued to thrive.
Shortly after the move to Judge, Thérèse Marie was born in 1931. She was the 13th child and the youngest girl in a family of 15 children (two of whom died at birth). Terry is survived by siblings Joseph and Jacques. Predeceased by siblings Jeannette, Enola, Cécile, Joachim, George, Gérard, Marie, Solange, Eugène, and Roland. A video history of the Bergeron family as told by Thérèse can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLymBBBiO-14Gpi4XzokKaioWng_NHCnH8
Life on the farm was a subsistence existence with food being grown to feed their own family, and the men often working in the bush or in the mines during the winter months. They lived in a house described by Terry as a shack with no electricity, running water or central heating. There was one room for the girls and one for the boys. The children slept on mattresses filled with straw.
As a child at home one of Terry's jobs was to clean the machine that would extract the cream from the milk. Selling the cream for butter-making brought in some badly needed money for the family. Another job was to clean the oil lamps. She enjoyed singing all her life and once recounted a story where her father pushed her to sing in front of people in their church when she was 13.
In 1950 at the age of 17 and with a few clothes in a bag, Terry followed her sister Solange to Montreal. She remembers arriving at the train station and being amazed to see escalators for the first time. Terry took a job with the Canadian National Railway as a secretary. In 1956, at a church group, she met Wesley Weber, an anglophone from Saskatchewan who was also a child from a large farm family. In August 1958 at age 26 they were married. That same year they moved to London, Ontario for Wes to pursue his studies. When they arrived Terry took a job with the Toronto Dominion bank, leaving in 1959 for the birth of their first child Paul in 1959. Two years later Mark was born in 1961.
In 1963 they left London for Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Wes was busy with a PhD. Thérèse remembers finding it hard to be at home with two young children surrounded by people and a country she did not know; she was missing her family.
In 1966, Terry and family moved to Buffalo, again following her husband’s academic career at the University of New York. In 1972, with the Vietnam War continuing to rage and the threat of her children being drafted when they were older, Terry and family decided to return to Canada. They settled in Ottawa, Ontario where Wes taught at Carleton University. Terry was very happy to be back in Canada and closer to family. Once the boys were teenagers, she went back to work including at Atomic Energy Canada, and Imperial Oil.
Later in life Terry settled into her condo on Laurier Avenue in downtown Ottawa where she lived for 33 years. She continued to volunteer and enjoyed singing with Good Companions Seniors’ Centre, did some travelling in Europe and Canada, enjoyed reading, and visiting with friends and family was a priority. She became an active grandmother to four children and stand-in grandmother for several more, a dearly loved aunt and a good friend to the many who knew her. Thérèse is remembered by all for her compassion, kindness, and deep caring for others. She will live forever in our hearts and will be dearly missed. We love you Nana/Grandma/TanteThérèse!
I was so sorry to hear the news . Ma Tante Therese looks so much like my grand mother Cecile . I am Rolande's eldest daughter Nicole . I know that she is up in heaven with her loving sister's .
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