Ute Martin

After a richly dynamic life, Ute Martin (nee Osten) passed onward on April 6th, 2025 at the age of 89 years. Ute is predeceased by her husband, Peter Martin. Her daughters, Heidi, Annette, Nicola remember her with love and pride as it was mom’s influence and encouragement that freed them to pursue their dreams as well.

Having learned to cope with life in war-ravaged Berlin, Ute was optimistic and creative. Her father, Werner Osten, a well -known doctor and surgeon was a hero to her. He greatly influenced her choice of career in caregiving.

As a member of the Pfadfinder (Girl Guides), Ute learned skills that served her well and made her an enthusiastic adventurer, foundational for the scope of some of the sparkling highlights of her career as a Grey Hare. Cross country skiing the Rockies, Mountain biking Colorado, paddling the Yukon and Green Rivers, kayaking the Everglades, just to name a few. Ute was forever in training, preparing dehydrated food, repairing her tent or mountain bike or downsizing her backpack to better fit into Winona, her canoe. All this after the age of 65!

In her early years, Ute’s guitar and folksy voice, were her companions as she forged forth to Scotland for her internship in Physiotherapy before embarking independently aboard a vessel bound for Montreal, and subsequently, a train bound for Winnipeg where in 1958, she joined the Canadian Arthritis Society.

Ute was a champion in her field. She was passionate—not only for her patients—but for any and all who suffered: the underprivileged, the poor, the lesser educated. She was quick to support a cause, volunteer, or treat people in exchange for homemade tomato sauce, even as she judiciously penny-pinched to save the cost of fresh fruit in favor of the discounts at Loblaws.

Thanks to her friend Erika von Kampen, Ute met Peter at the Canoe Club—immediately gaining entrance to his heart with her cute smile, her short skirt, and her total ineptitude on the tennis court. After their first encounter, (Peter embracing the opportunity to teach Ute the art of tennis), Peter drove Ute home from the courts. Having safely deposited her there, she instantly climbed onto a bus, and returned to the courts in order to retrieve the bicycle she hadn’t dared tell him had been her transportation to the club.

As mother, Ute was a taskmaster in physical education, but it was in the arena of academia where her embers blazed as a gentle and persistent tutor to her children. The rice pot could boil over and even the spin cycle on the washer could expel “perfectly good hardly used water”, but Ute stayed rooted next to her children to coax them through their homework assignments. It did not matter the subject—she steadied their hands on the page, she retrieved atlases and encyclopedias, she dashed off to Woolworth’s to purchase 3-lined notebooks.

Ute’s creative domesticity continues to thrive in her grandchildren (Raven, Nicholas, Sienna, Zachary, Kaleb, Mason), and great-grandson Theon Sark Pritchett who remember best those intimate afternoons sewing and knitting, making candles, baking Stollen, cooking jam, creating Christmas decorations. To this day, every creation remains a testament to her love, determination and pursuit of endless possibility.

Ute’s forthright manner spoke to her sincerity, honesty and courage. She was a fiercely loyal woman upon whom friends and family could always depend. Ute is survived by her sisters Heide Jurczek, and Sigrid Masa; pre-deceased by her brothers Eike and Till Osten. Family and friends look forward to celebrating Ute at a future date.

The family would like to give our sincere thanks to the staff at River East Personal Care Home who were able to provide comfort and support to all of us even through the hardship of Covid.