In Loving Memory of Victoria Booth

November 14, 2025

12/16/1928 – 10/28/2025

Victoria Booth, a Community Care volunteer for nearly four decades, shared her time and kindness with a quiet, steady grace. She offered help in ways that brought comfort to others, always showing warmth, patience, and a genuine care for the people around her. Her compassion made our community feel smaller and kinder, and her passing is felt deeply by everyone who had the gift of knowing her.

Victoria’s Contribution to Community Care

Victoria retired in December 1988 after a long and accomplished career in the textile industry, where she began as a young weaver and eventually became a supervisor. Within weeks of retiring, she stepped into a new chapter that would guide the next 35 years of her life: volunteering with Community Care.

She began as a Meals on Wheels delivery driver, bringing nutritious food and friendly connection to older adults across Kawartha Lakes. Over the years, she served in many roles, eventually joining our Board of Directors and later the Client Caregiver Advisory Council. Victoria often said, “I like to do my volunteer work, which keeps me busy and makes me happy” and she lived that philosophy fully.

The first 25 years of her volunteer work were hands-on, out in the community, offering support wherever she could. In her later years, she became a thoughtful voice at committee tables, helping guide Community Care through changes, challenges, and growth. She remained an active member of the Client Caregiver Advisory Council until just a few weeks before her passing.

Victoria is known throughout Kawartha Lakes, having also been featured as part of the Victoria County Historical Society’s “Precious Memories” project. This video project shared the voices and stories of local Kawartha Lakes seniors. Her full story can be viewed in this 2020 feature by the Kawartha Lakes Museum and Archives below:

Below are a few newspaper clippings that capture moments from Victoria’s many years of giving back through Community Care, along with a special piece that we had saved in our archives celebrating 50 years of marriage with her husband, Mel.

A Tribute from Cindy Williams, Foundation Manager

I was new to Lindsay when I first met Victoria. I had just started attending Fairview Baptist Church when she approached me and said, very simply, “I’d like to have you and your husband to lunch.” She was ninety years old, recently widowed, and completely unshaken by the idea of inviting a stranger into her home. That quiet confidence never left her. Over the years I heard many stories just like mine: Victoria making newcomers feel welcome with warmth and without fuss.

She was the eldest of nine children, and she began working at sixteen, right in the middle of the war. Her career in the textile industry lasted forty years, and she rose to become a supervisor, which was a remarkable accomplishment for a woman in that era. Within days of retiring, she began volunteering with Community Care. She was a good friend of Valmay Barkey’s mother, and perhaps that connection inspired Victoria to support Valmay when she founded Community Care 40 years ago. Both women were active members of the church and believed deeply in loving your neighbour. Victoria lived that out in everything she did.

She volunteered as a driver, delivered Meals on Wheels, and also served on our Board of Directors. In her later years she sat on the Client Advisory Committee and only stepped down a few weeks before her passing, which was just a few weeks shy of her 97^th birthday. Along the way she took on many other roles, including running a quilting group at the church. She was a gentle example to the younger generations around her, showing what it looks like to serve with your whole heart.

I watched her transition from her home to Lakeland Village, an assisted living community. She was matter of fact about it and handled it with grace. She didn’t dwell on what she was giving up. Instead, she chose to engage, contribute, and thrive. She became president of the residents’ council and organized craft shows and fundraisers. Whenever I visited, she was knitting or sewing something she planned to donate, display at the fair, or give away. My home is full of her dish rags and Swiffer covers, each one a small reminder of her steady hands at work.

Victoria lived a life of service, and she blessed the people around her without ever calling attention to herself. She leaves behind a legacy stitched from kindness, purpose, and community.

By Cindy Williams

Community Care Foundation Manager