Margarete Dietrich (nee Stampler)
June 26, 1925 – October 20, 2023

Margarete, Mama, Oma, Tante Grete passed away at Peterborough Regional Health Centre surrounded by her family. Being in her 99th year, with her body failing her, she was ready for the ‘big sleep’.

Margarete was born in Austria and emigrated to Canada with her now late husband Karl in 1957, 6 months pregnant with their first and only child, Karin. She loved Canada and embraced this country as home. Margarete and Karl moved to Toronto and eventually made their home in Scarborough. In 1972 they were able to purchase a lake-side property in Buckhorn, where they built a family cottage. A property where Karin and her husband Gordon now live and where family members from as far away as Europe like to gather.

Margarete retired from her job at Environment Canada in her early 60s to be able to spend more time in her garden, at the cottage and travelling, at first with her husband Karl and later with her partner Hugh Clarke.

Margarete was fiercely independent. She made all the important decisions in her later years herself: when to sell her house and move into a condo, when to give up driving, when to sell her condo and move to a retirement residence in Peterborough and when it was time to put herself in palliative care. She lived life to the fullest and was fun to be around. She was very inclusive and made many friends at all her activities. She was an inspiration to those that were lucky enough to have known her.

Margarete, Mama, Oma, Tante Grete is greatly missed by her daughter Karin, son-in-law Gordon, and grandchildren Alexandra (Matt) and Geoffrey, as well as by all her friends and family in Canada and Europe.

There will be a celebration of life on her 99th heavenly birthday on June 26, 2024 at 1 p.m. at the Pine Hills Cemetery in Scarborough where Margarete’s ashes will be interred next to her late husband, Karl.

As expressions of sympathy, donations in memory of Margarete may be made to the Peterborough Regional Health Centre which provided Margarete with such great care and compassion in her final week of life or to the Scarborough Health Network where Margarete was a volunteer for more than a decade.