Therese Marie Warner

Therese was born into a close-knit family. Her father, Bernard Martin, worked for Acadia Coal Company as a pipefitter, and her mother, Margaret Peck, was a homemaker. They raised five children in a large white house at the end of St. Joseph Street in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Many family members lived nearby and often gathered at the house to eat, socialize, and play cards.

In her youth, Therese played softball, ice skated on frozen lakes, and helped her mother tend to the family’s chickens and cow. After graduating from high school, she set her sights on college. Although her father was in favor of the idea, her mother was skeptical, wondering what the point was if she was eventually going to marry and have children. Therese got a job working the switchboard at the local phone company and waited for her mother to come around. A year later, she enrolled at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia at a time when few Canadian women went to college. Many of those at the university were majoring in home economics. Therese chose sociology.

After college, Therese joined The Grail, a Catholic women’s organization based in Loveland, Ohio – an experience that afforded travel and new adventures. She lived in Vogelenzang, Holland and served as the director of the Grail’s International Student Center in New York City. She also took a job working long hours in a jute factory in Dundee, Scotland for the purpose of compiling a report on working conditions for women at the mills.

Interested in social justice, Therese was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King and traveled to Washington DC in 1963 to participate in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A few years later, she met the politician and activist Sargent Shriver in Washington, DC and gave him an update on the Grail’s programs in Kampala, Uganda.

Having spent roughly a decade with The Grail, Therese returned to university for the next chapter in her life. She received an MA from Northeastern University in Boston, where she met her husband, Henry (Harry) Warner. They were married in Ottawa in 1968. The couple settled in Bristol, RI, where Harry got a teaching job at Roger Williams College. They had two children, Melanie and Tim. Therese embraced her new role as a mom. She often recalled these years the best of her life.

Times of financial stress, precipitated by Harry’s departure from his teaching job, led to a career selling Mary Kay Cosmetics. Therese threw herself into this undertaking with as much enthusiasm and determination as she had every other endeavor. Through Mary Kay, she made many close friends, won several cars, and embraced a philosophy of positive thinking. She also returned to academia, teaching as an adjunct professor of sociology at the Community College of Rhode Island. She and Harry separated when their children were in college; they later divorced.

The last years of Therese’s life were spent with her daughter Melanie, son-in-law Rich, and her two grandsons Jude and Luke, whom she cherished. She moved to live with them in Boulder, CO, then Honolulu, and finally, back to Boulder. While in Honolulu, Therese was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Although initially resistant to the idea of leaving family, she moved into an assisted living facility and grew to enjoy its activities and regular routines, as well as the new friends she made. Apart from Alzheimer’s, Therese’s had excellent health throughout her life. She was asymptomatic twice with Covid-19 and was walking around and socializing with friends until she fell and broke her hip two months prior to her passing.

Therese will be fondly remembered by many as a trailblazer, loyal friend, devoted Catholic, and a loving and supportive mother. She will be laid to eternal rest in the family plot at Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery in Stellarton, Nova Scotia.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.cristmortuary.com for the Warner family.