Elisabeth Nebesny

[scotto]

This bad news was already posted in the "Announcements", but since Elisabeth was a big part of the Lighthouse Group, I have posted it once more.

Dear Friends of the Lighthouse,

I'm sorry to advise you that Elisabeth Nebesny, our founding director,
passed away on Saturday, October 14. She will be dearly missed by all of us.

An obituary in the Spectator notes that family and friends will be received
at MARKEY-DERMODY FUNERAL HOME, 1774 King Street East (at Kenilworth) on
Wednesday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Panachyda at 7 p.m. Funeral Mass to be held
at St. Nicholas Ukranian Catholic Church (260 Melvin Ave., Hamilton) on
Thursday at 10 a.m.

Keep well,

David Auger
Beach Canal Lighthouse Group
(905) 681-6233

 

[scotto]

Beach Strip beacon

Posted with full permission from the Hamilton Spectator

By John Burman
The Hamilton Spectator
(Oct 31, 2006)
When Elisabeth Nebesny wanted to honour a friend, she worked tirelessly to get a city parkette developed near the beach.

That's how Elizabeth Ryan Park was born on the Beach Strip -- two nice benches, a memorial rock and a plaque honour the woman who ran the neighbourhood drugstore for years.

Beach Strip folks say it would be fitting to do the same thing for Nebesny, a long-time community activist and gardener who nurtured her neighbourhood as well as her gardens.

Nebesny died in Markham on Oct. 14. She was 74.

"She was a wonderful, wonderful person," says Jim Howlett, president of the Beach Preservation committee.

"She was a meat and potatoes worker on the community council. Tireless. She did all the kinds of work that makes a community council work.

"A bench with a plaque on it along the Waterfront Trail would be most appropriate to remember Elisabeth."

Nebesny and her husband, Emil, immigrants from Austria, came to the strip in 1960, buying a cottage on Grafton Street in the days before industry began filling in water lots on the bay.

They raised four children there -- Paul, Joseph, Lucia and Maria -- and Elisabeth became involved in the Beach Canal Lighthouse preservation group, the beach preservation group and the Hamilton Beach Garden Club,

"She was the gardener," says Howlett. "And she nurtured a lot more than plants. She really cared.

"Elisabeth believed in the neighbourhood as it is, not as it once was or what it had the potential to be. She put those beliefs into action."

When the cities of Burlington and Hamilton were expropriating land in the 1970s with an eye to clearing the houses and turning the sand strip into one big park, Nebesny stayed and worked for the community while others lined up to sell out.

"When Elizabeth Ryan died -- oh, she and her family ran the drugstore for years and years -- Elisabeth got the idea for a memorial, benches and a rock on a little piece of city property."

After Emil died, Nebesny moved to Swan Lake Village in Markham to be near family. She died at the Hill House Hospice in Richmond Hill.

jburman@thespec.com

905-526-2469
Corrections
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 2, 2006)
Correction published: - 20061102

Katharine Ryan, who ran Ryan's Pharmacy on the Beach Strip with her husband Bill and is honoured with a neighbourhood parkette, was incorrectly identified in a story on Tuesday. The Spectator apologizes for the error.