Obituary of Ruth McNab

Died suddenly in her home on May 18, 2022 at age 85. Vibrant, funny, uncompromising, impatient. She was a force to be reckoned with disguised as a sweet little old lady. A social dragonfly, not butterfly; Ruth was iridescent. She hovered and landed instead of flitting from place to place.

She was the life of every party – to be expected from a New Year’s Eve baby (born Dec. 31, 1936). Her photo (posing with a family friend), snapped at our Christmas dinner party in 2021, captures her essence perfectly. Ruth loved to hold court and regale people with stories from her interesting life. (A young family friend once gifted her a wine glass emblazoned with “Queen of Everything”. It suited her perfectly.) She enjoyed friends, conversation, white wine, cigarettes, and “outings” to the casino. She was a competitive bridge player who played with the bridge club in St. Catharines for many years. Predeceased by her twin daughters, Heather and Deirdre (Dee), she grieved them quietly while keeping their memories alive through stories she shared from the past. Family life, vacations, Catholic school, the ski cabin – she spoke of these happy times to share them with her youngest granddaughter Jessica, who was her housemate for the past six years.

Ruth has left a huge empty space in our lives. It is surreal without her constant presence on the couch, CNN blaring while she surfed on her tablet and waited to call us downstairs to watch Jeopardy. She is missed by her family and her legion of friends. Ruth’s ashes will be interred with her daughters without ceremony and her life will be celebrated with a party later this summer, as per her wishes.