Mary Elizabeth "Liz" Adamson
April 9, 1936 - July 28, 2025
Mary Elizabeth Conway Adamson died peacefully surrounded by loving family in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia on Monday, July 28, 2025, following a brief illness. She was 89 years old.
Mary Elizabeth was born on April 9, 1936, in Talara, Peru, the only child of Daniel Delany Conway and Flora Pearson Smart, both employed by Standard Oil. After five years in Talara, the family lived in Barranquilla and Bogota, Colombia, and at the age of 11, Mary Elizabeth travelled on her own to Toronto to begin Grade 7 at Havergal College. Her parents' close relationships with local people, their facility with Spanish, the family's move from a port city on the Pacific, to a bustling Caribbean seaport, and then to a high plateau in the Andes, followed by her first solo voyage to Canada were formative experiences in Mary Elizabeth's life. She loved the sea and spent most of her life living close to it; she was interested and eager to meet people from different cultures; and she had a fierce sense of independence and adventure, honing and melding the skills of outback pioneer and world explorer. Her early life as an only child also seemed to mould her: she sought social contact wherever she went.
Liz, as she preferred to be called, was determined to make a good life for herself, and, ultimately, for her family. After finishing school, she studied nursing at the University of Toronto, and shortly after her graduation married Agar Adamson. Together they moved to Ottawa and then to Kingston and finally to Wolfville, Nova Scotia in 1966 where Agar became Professor of Political Science and where they raised their four children. Before the children arrived, Liz became a devoted and beloved community nurse, and when the children were grown, she completed a BFA at Acadia and returned to community health nursing, working well past the usual retirement age. But her career was just one facet of Liz's sparkling, energetic, and engaged life.
Just as important was her social life. Liz was gregarious and formed strong friendships wherever she went. She was passionately involved in the public life of Wolfville. She enjoyed theater, concerts, and gallery visits, but was just as happy talking to the butcher, chatting with the post office clerk, or attending her bookclub. And while she liked going out and had an elegance all her own, her special gift was hosting. In Wolfville, the house on Main Street became a gathering place for family and friends, for Agar's colleagues and students, and for new arrivals who Liz wanted to know better. Christmas was a grand event with food, drink, games, and warmth. Liz hosted social events in a way that only she could, - making everyone comfortable, cooking delicious and beautifully presented down-to-earth meals, adding to lively conversation on art, literature, politics, the scallop catch and so much more, and showing her joy with a light-hearted laugh that made everyone smile.
Liz was also a physical wonder. Her thin upright frame held boundless energy, often put towards physical activities like cross-country skiing, hiking, yoga, and household chores. But the same energy seemed to frequently catapult her from one place to the next, so that a day might start with a trip to the market, followed by a visit to a gallery, then a hop out to see a friend, a stop to pick up a book, a race back home to get the fish in the oven and prepare the rest of the meal for the six guests coming for dinner, a quick duck into the bedroom to dress for dinner, and then out and back to the door again and again, greeting people as they arrived. Simply put, Liz had kinetic energy.
Above all, Liz was a loving wife, mother, and grandmother. She was Agar's rock, and the two explored the world together, with trips to South America, India, the Arctic, Papua New Guinea, and Japan. To her children and grandchildren, she passed along her spirit of adventure, her own practical skillset, and many of her cultural interests. Books, art, and music were woven into family life, and she was always ready to give advice. Liz looked forward to summers in Lunenburg and especially to time with the family there. Whether hiking out to Gaff Point, weeding the front garden, entertaining old friends, sitting quietly with a good novel, or scrubbing a pot in the kitchen sink, Liz was happier with a grandchild by her side.
Mary Elizabeth was predeceased by her husband Agar in 2022 and by her daughter-in-law Ghislaine in 2007. She is survived by her four children: Geoffrey (Juliette), Andrea (James), Blair (Karen) and Ashley (Katherine), and nine grandchildren: Solange, Sabine, Emmanuelle, Eva, Bronwyn, Tait, Simon, Andrew, and Robyn.
A celebration of her life will take place on Thursday August 7, 2025, 2:00 pm at St. John's Anglican Church in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her honour to the Victoria Order of Nurses or the Canadian Cancer Society.