Obituary of Connie Salter
Margaret Constance “Connie” Salter, age 86, died May 29th at Valley View Villa.
Connie was born in College Grant Jan 8 1937 , to George and Margaret (Bray) Carroll.
Being born at home on an isolated farm, two months premature in the dead of a Nova Scotia winter must have started her out on the path to be the strong, fiercely independent person we all knew and loved. And let's not forget stubborn as an ox. She was the hardest working mother you can imagine. She thought nothing of dragging two preschoolers across the road to chop down some trees, haul them home and saw them with a big cross cut saw. She took great pride in feeding her family, baking bread, delicious home-cooked meals and was famous for her Melting Moments and Pork pies.
In the late 60's she moved up to Coll Ave, Stellarton with her parents to be closer to her
older sisters and their young families. She began her career at Robertson's Drugstore in New Glasgow and went on to work at Poulain’s Pharmacy. She married our father Alex Salter of Glengarry in 1968 and we came along in the early 70's. She stayed home to raise us but returned to Poulain's in the mid eighties . She was still working 4 hours a day, right up until she got her diagnosis of Alzheimers in 2016 at the age of 79. She was trying her darnest to outdo her dear friend Molly Marcott. There is no denying they were cut from the same cloth.
Mom loved being Nanny to her grandchildren. They are left with many fond memories of walks to the ducky pond, baking cookies, leaf-raking, trips to the garden centres, garden-planting, splashing in the kiddie pool, snowman building and sledding and being asked "Penny for your thoughts."
Mom will always be remembered for her dark and light fruitcakes and Christmas puddings and gumdrop loafs that she would make each year for all her siblings and any niece's and nephews whose Christmases would not be complete without the tradition started by Our Nanny Carroll.
We will be forever thankful to her for instilling in us the gift of reading. She always said she was not a good reader-but she read to us every night before bed, bought us Little Golden Books every grocery order and made weekly trips to the library.
She will be dearly missed by her children Eleanor (Barry) Smith and Sandy Salter; grandchildren Linden (Kyle) MacKenzie; Rowan Dale (Grace MacLean); Harrison and Ainslie Salter (Ray Chisholm); Barry's children Meghan Little (Greg Hatchard) and her children Kaiden and Cal: Brett Smith; brother Leon (Ìrene), Etobicoke, sister-in-law Mary Carroll and many nieces and nephews.
Connie was predeceased by her parents, her husband Alex Salter, sisters Betty (Jamie) Wadden and Jeanette (Frank) Rogers, brother Ted Carroll.
Thank you to ALL the kind workers at Valley View who appreciated her feisty side that came with Alzheimers. She developed a great sense of humor and suffered no fools. She told it like it was. For those who knew mom before it is hard to imagine-but most days she was in fine form! One of her favorite lines was "My barn was warmer than this place!” Thank you to the kind staff and( especially Jody), who worked tirelessly to keep her in heaters-even when she burned through them in the middle of a heat wave.
Donations can be made to The Alzheimer Society or the Aberdeen Palliative Care Endowment Fund or any charity close to your heart.
Cremation has taken place. Honouring Mom's wishes, there will be no public visitation or funeral.