Margaret McCarroll

It is with great sadness that the family of Margaret McCarroll announces her passing at Saint Joseph’s Health Centre Toronto in the Palliative Care Unit. She showed her strength & courage right to the end of a decades-long battle with COPD, and died peacefully on the evening of Friday, March 31st, a few short weeks after her 72nd birthday. Her son, Jesse Barkley, and his partner Michael Sakalauskas, of Toronto, are proud & grateful to have had such a stylish, brilliant & devoted mother. Margaret loved being a grandmother to Noah Hinsperger, Sage Barkley & Eadie Hahn, the children of her daughter, Jane Barkley, and husband Darrick Hahn, of Kitchener-Waterloo. She is also survived by her sisters Cathy McCarroll, and her children Mark & Patrick McCauley, of Stratford, Jane McCarroll, and her daughter Callah McCarroll, of Vancouver, Susan McCarroll, and her children Lana Royce & Mitchell Pollock, of London, and her brothers, John McCarroll, wife Denise McCarroll and their children Leigha, Siobhan, Ethan & Ronan, of Stratford, Patrick McCarroll and his wife Rona Marquez, and their children Jake & Luke McCarroll, of Stratford, and her late-brother Frank McCarroll, his widow Lynn Kelly, and her children Erin & Emma McCarroll. She is predeceased by her parents John & Edith McCarroll, of Stratford. Margaret taught piano for more than three decades, educating countless students and cultivating in them a passion for music & performance. She also served as the Director of Competition at the Stratford Kiwanis Festival of Performing Arts for twelve years, a tenure noted for its growth & innovation, which was always guided by her motto ‘for the kids’. Margaret was a lover of books, word games like Scrabble & Wordle, and fashion. She was a proud feminist and cared deeply about activism & social justice. She will be greatly missed by the family and all those that loved her dearly. Margaret’s legacy will be honoured at a private celebration of life for family & friends. As an expression of sympathy, donations can be made to the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, and the Canadian Lung Association.