Sylvia Elaine Crouse

Sylvia Crouse, age 91, passed away at Drummond Hall in Halifax after a brief illness; only two months after she attended the funeral of her beloved husband of 67 years, Arthur Crouse. She was born and raised in Lunenburg where she enjoyed skating, swimming, and going to the movies. After graduating from the Lunenburg Academy she moved to Wolfville to attend a business course at Acadia University. She returned home to work at the Bank or Montreal and also helped her father John Walters with the books of the Thomas Walters and Sons Blacksmith Shop. In 1946 she moved to Halifax to become a laboratory technician where she worked under the direction of D. J. Mackenzie at the Pathology Laboratory until her marriage in 1951. Art and Sylvia soon became parents of a family that would number five children. Sylvia’s new career was raising the family and orchestrating many moves through Ontario and New Brunswick, returning to Nova Scotia in 1965.

Sylvia loved being active at home and in the community. She applied her creative skills to making special occasion cakes and scrumptious cookies, clothes and costumes for the family, quilts, and embroidery projects using published patterns but also creating original designs in cross stitch and needlepoint. She also taught the settler art of making wool beds at the Nova Scotia Museum. She held leadership positions with the Lutheran Church Women of Resurrection Lutheran Church in Halifax where she made church banners and countless quilts and baby layettes to send to people in need around the world. She also served as the congregational representative at several synodical and church-wide assemblies. She participated in a local group of Engineers Wives, and for many years along with Art participated in the 12th Canadian Baden-Powell Guild and the Chebucto Links Lunch Bunch.

She enjoyed the annual gatherings of family and friends at the Lutheran Camp Mush-a-Mush Family Camp, and the peace and quiet of the lakeside cottage that she and Art built in nearby Newburne. Their home and cottage were the gathering points for many happy times for their eleven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren who will dearly miss their Nannie.

Sylvia is survived by four of her children: Joanne (Andy Paulsen) of Cambridge, ON; and Catherine (Jim Casey), Michael (Heather), and Thomas (Jen Sewell) all of greater Halifax. She is predeceased by her daughter Barbara (Stephen Spearns); niece Linda Patterson; parents John and Eglah Walters; and three siblings Christabel Canteloupe, Jean Crouse, and Vernon Walters.

Cremation has occurred under the care of the J. A. Snow Funeral Home and her ashes have been placed in a double urn with those of her husband. A Celebration of Life will be held on Thursday, July 12, at 11:00 a.m. at Resurrection Lutheran Church, 2096 Windsor Street, Halifax. A reception will follow in the church hall, after which the internment will take place at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Lunenburg.

The family would like to thank the many staff of Drummond Hall who supported our Mom through the last four months of her life with compassion and professionalism, and Pastor Kimber McNabb and Bill Macintyre for their spiritual support. Donations can be made to the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection or Lutheran Camp Mush-A-Mush.