Mrs. Gertrude Louisa Moran Lockhart

Our dear matriarch and last surviving daughter of the Morans raised on Rue Durocher in central Montreal, died in early April in her 96th year. She was found in peaceful repose by arriving family at Sunnybrook hospital. From a long line of Irish-Canadians, she was hospitalized on St. Patrick’s Day and died with her leprechaun socks on, having out-battled pneumonia but lost her war with dementia.

She was born in the Great War’s closing stages, October 1918 at Saint-Patrice-de-Beaurivage (“St. Patrick”) in Quebec, the fourth of seven children of Edward Moran and Clara Mullen. Her father liked farm life but her mother did not and had the stronger will. Within a year the family had resettled in Montreal and her father found work as a brakeman.

Through secretarial school into the working world, Gertrude went by Trudy and was a beauty, with the high cheekbones and willowy curves of leading actresses of the day. While never vain about her looks, she valued them, and her protective reflexes seldom wavered on matters of diet, exercise and indulgences in moderation only. With her gracious ways and commitment to smart clothes and good grooming, she was the exemplar of a lady and continued to turn heads well into old age.

Her single life ended when she met an exuberant westerner named Lloyd Macdonald Lockhart on the Laurentian slopes. By the time the parish priest sanctioned her union with a non-Catholic, Lloyd had accepted a newspapering job that would require her to leave behind family and friends to start a new life in Toronto.

And all went well. Lloyd and Gert (no more Trudy) started a family and bought a house on one-block Astor Avenue in the early years of south Leaside, and were soon part of a thriving social circle. The Astor crowd travelled, partied and raised copious kids together, with bonds especially strong among the wives. While the men were off being Don Draper, the women ran the households, bossed the kids and evolved their afternoon bridge into a closed universe steeped in small intrigues and rituals. Devoted to family and friends, church and community, Gert was never happier than when gathered with the bridge-club “gals” for cards, cake and conversation.

Once their kids were grown, she and Lloyd homesteaded a small apartment building on nearby Eglinton Avenue and customized a corner to their liking. He ran a busy public relations practice and she supplied clerical skills, emotional support and a dash of cold water whenever a big idea began to run away from reason. And did they travel! The family has Lloyd’s snaps of Gert posing at the Ring of Kerry, the Cheops pyramid, Berchtesgaden, the Wailing Wall, Red Square, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Belfast, the Sydney opera house, Trafalgar Square, L’Anse aux Meadows, the Malmo ferry.

In June 2009, her saddest day, Gert lost her partner of 65 years. Her next home was the elegant surrounds of the Dunfield retirement centre, where her sociable ways and “gal pal” needs were met by residents and staff and eventually, a series of loyal and caring personal support workers (the two Cherrys, Joanah, Agnes and others). The caregivers who formed Gert's last circle of good friends were typically first-generation Canadians from other lands; the country is richer for their presence.

Gertrude leaves her sons Kim and Greg, devoted nieces Sheila and Bobbi, family friend Lois, six grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She was predeceased by her daughters Janet and Laurie, her older sisters Celia, Kay and Edna, and a long list of dearly departed friends. She is mourned by her younger brothers and their spouses, Bob and Grenda Moran in Santa Barbara, Cal., and Leonard and Hilda Moran in Dorval, Que., and her brother-in-law Stan Lemieux in Rosemount, Que., as well as seven nieces and nephews and their families.

Friends may call at the Trull “North Toronto” Funeral Home at 2704 Yonge St. (5 blocks south of Lawrence Ave.) on Saturday April 26 from 12:30 pm. The Memorial Service will take place in the chapel at 1 pm. Online condolences can be made at www.trullfuneralsyonge.com. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, a donation be made to the Alzheimer Society of Toronto.