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Henry Daniel St Aubync Married: 1929 Margaret Dempseyc | |||||||||||
| Margaret Mary St Aubyn [CFT #611] Born: 1936-Dec-27 Died: 2020-Nov-8 |
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| b London d Toronto, Canada Margaret Mary Cobbold (nee: St Aubyn) was born in London (11 Burgundy Street), England on December 27, 1936, the eldest daughter in a family of six children. Her father was a Journeyman Engineer and her mother was a homemaker of Irish descent. Both were devoted Roman Catholics. Two years after Margaret's birth the family moved to the outskirts of the small industrial town of Redditch situated 15 miles from the sprawling city of Birmingham. The move was caused by the necessity of major industries in the immediate pre-War II period to move away from larger industrial centres to safer areas and her father's company was one of several firms to invade this small insular town. Growing up we enjoyed the freedom of rural life and as children led a fairly carefree existence in spite of the many restrictions and shortages of the war and the post-war period. Following the completion of high school in 1954 Margaret was accepted for March 1955 entry in what is now known as, the Queen Elizabeth School of Physiotherapy. On graduation in January 1958 she moved to Edinburgh and shared an apartment with other therapists in this most enjoyable city for 2 years. The work was varied and challenging. Her first job took her to a hospital just outside the city which served a mining community. Here she became aware of the very great problems facing workers with long term disabilities due to industrial disease. A second posting was in the port section of the city with its harsh life of the dockland area and its outdated and inadequate housing. Margaret noted that it was often very difficult to reconcile some of the Church's teachings, particularly those of a medical/moral nature, with the prevailing social conditions. Like many other young people in Britain Margaret wanted to travel and it was easy to get a job in a Commonwealth country at that time as there were reciprocal arrangements in effect covering the acceptance of medical qualifications. In September 1960 she arrived in Saskatoon and started work in the 17 member physiotherapy department at he University Hospital, situated on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan. Life in a small prairie city was certainly very different from Edinburgh. However, the friendliness of the people and the many young people around the university helped to adjust her to living alone for the first time. The long winters, which tended to isolate the city, made it very essential to pursue and develop new interests and, in the absence of close family ties, she realized the need to build up and sustain close friendships. Margaret noted that it was also very refreshing to live in a society which possessed, at least to the European eye, a great degree of social mobility. Margaret's eldest brother Bernard became a career officer in the Royal Air Force and his flying duties meant numerous moves for his wife and two children. Kevin, the second eldest brother, was ordained a diocesan priest and in 1979 was appointed pastor of a parish near Canterbury in England. In October 2020 he retired, having served in this parish for 40 years. Her youngest brother Michael also became a diocesan priest and, after doctoral studies in Europe, returned to England to become a professor of moral theology. Early in 1970 after a breakdown in health he left the priesthood and was eventually laicized. He worked in advertising for many years, subsequently married and died in January 2014. Teresa, Margaret's younger sister, trained as a State Registered Nurse at Bart's Hospital in London. She worked in South Africa and England before following her big sister's footsteps and pitched up in Toronto. She married a Canadian farmer, moved to Goderich, raised three children and returned to her medical profession as a practice nurse. She passed away in 2017. Polly, the youngest sister, trained as a librarian and worked for many years in government libraries in Scotland. She retired as a police college librarian in 2014 and moved to Portugal two years later. It was while in Saskatoon that she met her future husband, Richard. He also was from the UK having immigrated to Canada in 1956, and had subsequently joined the University of Saskatchewan, where he was an Assistant Professor of electrical engineering working in the field of Medical engineering while completing his doctorate. The marriage took place in the UK at Redditch Catholic Church on 2nd August 1963 in a mass co-celebrated by her two younger brothers. Funnily enough, neither had decided ahead of time who would give the homily, so it had to be adlibbed. Her two eldest sons were born in Saskatoon, Adrian in 1964 and David in 1966. Richard received an appointment in Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto starting in July 1966, resulting in a move to the outskirts of Toronto and the purchase of our one and only house. It was in Toronto that her third son, Christopher, was born in 1968. The children grew up near St Margaret's of Scotland Catholic church under the watchful eye of the first parish priest, Fr Bolan. Over the next 15 years Margaret provided the love, care and guidance that all young children need as they grow up and put up with all the difficulties associated with Richard’s teaching and research responsibilities. By the time the two older boys were in school Margaret felt a great need to continue with her education, since Physiotherapy was too physically demanding. In 1974 she enrolled at York University for a degree in history and political science with the idea of moving into a teaching career. This step was the first move in a long process of re-directing her life. In the fall of 1981 she graduated with a B.A degree from York University but, by then, the economy was in a downturn and the need for teachers had evaporated. As a result of many years of volunteer work in the community, in the local school and at Covenant House she was asked to take on the work of coordinating the school and parish sacramental programs. In particular, she worked for Fr Firth who was then the parish priest of St Margaret's. This started out on a volunteer basis but in September 1983, when the parish took over responsibility for the second, larger and predominantly Italian school in the north end of the parish, her part-time job became salaried. The longer she worked the more she realized the need for some formal grounding in theology. As a result, in September 1984 she enrolled as a special student in the Faculty of Theology at St. Michael's College, initially to pursue a part-time diploma in theology. It was there that she learnt of the opportunities for Roman Catholic lay persons to work in pastoral care within an institutional setting. It is an area which allowed her to combine her prior medical background with the more recent pastoral experience she had obtained. Subsequently, she became a full-time student and transferred into the Master of Divinity program and was awarded the M.Div degree in 1988. To become a fully accredited Chaplain it was necessary to complete several units of the Clinical Pastoral Education program, which in Canada, is accredited by the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care. One unit was completed at Sunnybrook Hospital, two units at the Toronto General Hospital and the Advanced training programs at the Toronto General and Western Hospitals. She became a fully accredited Hospital Chaplain in 1989 and in September of that year she joined the staff of the Pastoral Services Department of St. Joesph's Health Centre. Her final position was at Centenary Hospital in Scarborough from which she retired in May 2000 having attained the age of 63. Meanwhile, her two eldest sons had married and her husband had officially retired from the University of Toronto in 1997, though he continued to work there for another 20 years. In addition her youngest son had moved back to Canada working in Vancouver. Margaret became an active member of CAPPE/ACPEP (Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education) early on in her Chaplaincy career and played an important role in its development. She was appointed Secretary to the association in 1998 and served in that post until 2002. Subsequently she became honorary historian and spent many hours in organizing the CAPPE archives at the University of Victoria College at the University of Toronto. She finished this work in 2009. In 2005 at Halifax, Nova Scotia she was given the Verda Rochon Distinguished Service award for continuously promoting the highest standards of professionalism and service in the field of Pastoral Care Counselling and Education. |
1: 1964 Adrian Chevallier Cobboldc W/C 2: 1966 David Chevallier Cobboldc W/C 3: 1968 Christopher Mark Cobboldc W/C | ||||||||||
| 3 Children | |||||||||||
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