Margaret Cooke

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the peaceful passing of our Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother, Margaret Cooke on April 4th, 2026 at the age of 94 in the Minnedosa Hospital with her family by her side. Margaret was born on February 14th, 1932 in Clanwilliam, Manitoba to Ernest and Hilda Smart. She was born on her Mother’s birthday who always said she was the best birthday gift she ever received. Mom was the youngest of three children. Her older sister, Edith, born in 1920 passed away at six days old. Her older brother William (Bill) was born in 1925. They lived on a farm west of Clanwilliam until she was five years old and then the family returned to England to help care for her aging grandparents. While there, WWII broke out and they were unable to return to Canada. During the war everything was rationed and Mom learned at an early age what it was like to do without or make do with very little. Times were hard but they made it through. Her bed was under a heavy oak table and every night for many months at 9 PM the buzz bombs would come over. As long as you heard them, you were safe, when you didn’t that meant they had landed. They were fortunate none landed near them. She remembered being the “talk of the neighbourhood” when she would take the Canadian soldiers from “home” down to the paper shop for cigarettes! During wartime when any of the Clanwilliam and area soldiers were on leave, they would come and stay with her and her parents and none were ever turned away. It was a home away from home for them.

Mom went to school until the age of fourteen when you either went on to trade school or, if you could afford it, went on to higher learning. She was an apprentice at a bakery until allergies to the flour forced her to quit that job. Next, she was a passer in a corset factory and from there she was a clerk in an electrical plant until leaving for Canada. During her spare time, she took ballet and tap dancing and singing lessons and became a trained soprano. She had the most beautiful singing voice and when she eventually returned to Canada, sang at many wedding showers, weddings and the occasional funeral. She also taught tap dancing.

When football season was on in England, her Dad would buy three tickets each week on the football pools, one for each of them. One Saturday evening he informed them they had won. He asked them “what are we going to do”?  “We’re going home” they cried! And so, after sixteen years they returned to Canada and the area they called home, Clanwilliam. On May 26th, 1953, they boarded the “Empress of Scotland”. They arrived by train in Minnedosa on June 6th, 1953 and stayed with old friends, Jim and Edna Cooke until they found a house in Clanwilliam. Margaret married the love of her life, Campbell Cooke, only son of Jim and Enda on November 20th, 1954 at Clanwilliam United Church. They then moved to the groom’s farm where she continued to live for over seventy years until a week before her passing. She learned to be a farm wife very quickly and became the mother of three children. She loved and cared for each of us and always said how proud she was of her kids, grandkids and great granddaughter. The most important thing to Mom was when she had all her family around her. That was when she was the happiest. She often commented that she had “a life well lived”.

She was predeceased by her parents, sister Edith, brother Bill and his wife of England, her parents-in-law, her husband Campbell and her daughter-in-law Gerri.

She is survived by her daughter Lynda and husband Ian, daughter Lorraine and husband Curtis, grandson Jason, granddaughter Kristen and husband Johathan and great granddaughter Taryn, son Calvin and grandson Dylan and his partner Jacki, a nephew in England and cousins on her husband’s side and friends.

Mom was laid to rest beside her husband Campbell on April 13th, 2026 in a private family graveside service. We will forever hold her in our hearts and treasure our memories of our wonderful Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother.

The family wishes to thank Dr. Dan Onyshko for his wonderful care of Mom over the years. To the Home Care, Palliative Care and hospital staff, thank you for your excellent care of Mom in her final days. To Jim Richards, Brion Pollon and Ian Parish for the cemetery preparations, thank you. To Nathan White and staff at White’s Funeral Home, we thank you for your care and compassion at this difficult time and for making our requests happen. To everyone for the phone calls, flowers, food, cards and expressions of sympathy and charitable donations in Mom’s memory, thank you from all of her family. It is deeply appreciated.

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