Obituary of Marita Greenough

GREENOUGH, Marita Anija , West Gore. Marita MacDougall was born October 12, 1909 in Riverside Corner, Nova Scotia, the youngest in a family of eight children of Esson Munroe MacDougall and Myrtle Harriet Wallace. Her grandfather, William McDougall, was one of the early settlers in that part of Hants County and her paternal grandmother, Maria Sanford, was a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Sanford, one of the early New England Planters who arrived in Nova Scotia around 1760. On her mother's side, her grandfather, John T. Wallace was descended from the Loyalist William Wallace who left South Carolina to settle in Rawdon, NS in 1784. Marita's family moved to West Gore when she was still a baby. They lived first in a house owned by the Gordon family but then moved into a house originally built by her uncle Austin MacDougall (senior) as accommodation for workers at the nearby Antimony Mines and which was later moved to its current location on Valley Road in West Gore. Marita attended school in West Gore and then took her Grade XII at Bloomfield High School in Halifax the same year as her cousin Austin MacDougall (Junior), while staying with her aunt Mary (Thompson) MacDougall and Austin's uncle, Arthur Thompson. She graduated in 1927 at age 17 and then continued with summer school for three years at the Halifax Ladies College to get her teacher's license. She taught school for ten years in Hubbards, Burlington and Tatamagouche. As a young person Marita remembered seeing the patients that Dr. Eliza Brison would bring to church on Sundays in West Gore, and she was determined to become a nurse. She finally began her training at the Nova Scotia Hospital in 1941. After graduating, she worked for many years at the Tuberculosis Hospital in Halifax, where she met James Greenough who had been a steelworker and was a patient in the hospital. Marita and Jim were married in 1954. Marita continued her nursing at Camp Hill Hospital until her husband Jim died in 1974. She returned to the family home in West Gore to be with her mother Myrtle and her sisters, Mary and Marion where she lived. Among other things, Marita managed to do a fair bit of travelling, visiting the Thousand Islands in Ontario, where she remembered seeing mail being delivered to waterside boxes by mailmen in boats. She also travelled to the Magdalen Islands in Quebec and eventually to Grass Valley in California where two of her aunts (sisters of her father Esson) had gone to live years before. Marita has always shown a keen interest in family events and family history. She and her sisters kept a collection of family artifacts in their "museum" at home which have been of interest to many of their visitors over the years. Marita herself made it a priority to keep in touch with the various branches of the family. Marita is currently survived by her Greenough grandchildren, James Everett, Donald Alexander and Ethel Ann Greenough and four great-grandchildren, Christopher, Allison, Amelia and Robert, along with numerous cousins and other family members. Besides her parents, she was predeceased by husband James Henry Greenough, her siblings: Merle Rose Harvey , Loney Elwyn, Bernice Delsie Bubier, Mildred Dorothy May, Mary Maria, Marion Elfreda, Mabel Frances Crockett and by her stepson Donald Edward Greenough. Visitation 6-8pm, Saturday in Ettinger Funeral Home, Shubenacadie, and Sunday 12:30pm until time of service at 3pm in the West Gore Disciple Church, West Gore, Rev. Neil Bergman officiating, assisted by Rev. Angus R. MacDonald. Interment in the West Gore Cemetery. Donations in memory may be made to the West Gore Disciple Church. Reception in the lower part of the church following the committal. Condolences, words of comfort and remembrances of Marita may be shared with the family at: www.ettingerfuneralhome.com