Introducing Our June Member Spotlight: Meet Mary!

Meet Mary — a warm and friendly face we’re lucky to see around the pool at LC! A true social butterfly, Mary brings people together with her easy smile and kind spirit. She’s always cheering others on and her support for the community runs deep. We love having her as part of the LC family!

Keep reading to learn more about Mary’s fascinating life — from her adventurous travels and surprising hidden talents to the special reasons she keeps coming back to the pool. Her story is full of warmth, resilience, and a deep love for connection that truly embodies what Lemonade Collective is all about.

I fell in love with Canada when I was 4 and three quarters! I visited Canada from my home in Devon, England. My mother was Canadian and we came - on a Cunard ship - as a family of 6 (I am the youngest of 4 children) to visit my mothers’ family. One of my earliest memories is being woken very early one morning to go up on deck to see the sun rising over the icebergs off Greenland.

I visited Canada again, with my mother, in my teens, and then at the age of 20, after my second year at the University of Bath, I came on my own for 6 weeks. I got on a train at Union Station and travelled across the country, stopping to visit cousins in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. It didn’t take long… looking out of the train window at vast forests, lakes, prairies and mountains… I was IN LOVE with the expansive beauty and awesome landscape…and the possibilities….

6 weeks after returning from Canada, and back in Bath for my final year to become a Home Economist, I met a chap at the Rag Ball at the University and eagerly told him about my summer adventures in Canada. His reply..”I like the sound of Canada…LOTS OF SKY!” David was a pilot and Aeronautical Engineer, and an alumnus of Bath University. 3 years later we were married by both our brother-in-laws who were vicars, in my village church in Countess Wear, Exeter, Devon and in September 1981 we packed up and left for our new life in Canada. David had got a job with de Havilland Canada at Downsview, and I was going to wing it!

I quickly got a job with IGA Canada in Consumer Services, and from there went to Robin Hood Multifoods. 5 years later, in 1987, I became a full time mother to our daughter, Harriet Alida Lye.

One of the highlights of her early years was travelling with David to California for a 3 month assignment at NASA Ames in Mountainview, California. Harriet (aged 17 months) and I explored our new community and joined local mums and tots programmes. It was wonderful! I loved being a mummy! And I had no plans on returning to the corporate world…

When Harriet was 2, I got a call from Robin Hood to ask if I could help them on a project to promote the GIngerbread House Kit that I helped to develop. They did not have a big advertising budget, but felt that I could do “something” to bring it to the attention of consumers. So, I winged it! I called TV stations with daytime shows throughout Ontario and chatted my way into a slot to show how to make a gingerbread house. One thing led to another, and I kept getting calls from other divisions of Robin Hood Multifoods to help them with their marketing in my creative way. I never said no to a request, And I had fun!

A few years later I saw an ad in the Globe and Mail for a National role with the Canadian Honey Council to help the 10,000 beekeepers of Canada in the marketing of their wonderful honey and hive products. At the end of an interview by phone with a French speaking Beekeeper in rural Quebec, I managed to conclude the interview by telling him that I wanted to be “La Reine des Abeilles” - the Queen Bee! Apparently my sustained enthusiasm after 6 months of waiting and wondering about the job, got me the job! A 2 year contract turned into 6 years of travelling all across Canada and to the US to speak at beekeeping conferences and set up media interviews everywhere I went.

Twenty years later, in 2015, we were visiting Thornbury from our home in Toronto, and our daughter, Harriet was writing her first novel, The Honey Farm, inspired by my role as the Queen Bee! She needed some help from a beekeeper with some of the details, and we found the Honey House in Clarksburg. Harriet was chatting to the owner while I was browsing the store. The owner asked Harriet why she was writing a book about bees, and Harriet explained that her mother had worked for the Canadian Honey Council. “Who is your mother?” And Harriet told her my name. I heard a voice exclaim “MARY LYE”! And I said “Yes?” and there was Keri Lockhart back in my life!

We moved to our new home on the Millpond in 2016.

Harriet continues to write and is a full-time award-winning author and, with Cal, are wonderful parents of 2 gorgeous children, Arlo (6) and Lucy (3). The family loves coming to visit us in Thornbury, and we often enjoy a Family Swim at the Lemonade Collective.

Harriet’s journey with a rare form of leukemia at the age of 15 changed us all. We lived at Sick Kids Hospital for most of 2002. With the support of researchers around the world, her doctors, nurses, family and friends, and her determination and fight, Harriet survived great challenges. She has written very honestly about these 9 months of her life, along with the 9 months, 15 years later, that she carried Arlo, her first child, in her moving memoir, Natural Killer.

Soon after Harriet went back to full-time high school in 2003, I joined the very small staff at The Childhood Cancer Foundation of Canada. I told her story to encourage other families, and to encourage donors who could help make a difference in the fight against childhood cancer. After 7 rewarding and exhausting years of that role, we found Thornbury. A week of rest at the Royal Harbour Resort resulted in a love-affair with this community that continues to this day. We LOVE living here and being involved community members.

David continues to work (now part-time) for de Havilland from home, (yes, 44 years and counting!!) and is on staff at Owen Sound Flight Services as a flying instructor and scenic tour pilot. I found my place in the community when I read about the Thornbury-Clarksburg Rotary Club and their Kindness Campaign during Covid. This was MY KIND OF COMMUNITY!! I joined the Club and am proud of the work we do in our community and internationally to bring funds and kindness to those in need.

We are looking forward to raising funds this year through Trivia Night in September, our annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Saturday, and a Casino Night in November. Volunteers, sponsors and new members are needed and welcomed to help bring more kindness to our world.

Being a member of the Lemonade Collective is such a joy on many levels. From the warm welcome from the front desk, the pals I meet in the pool while exercising. It is an oasis of peace and retreat from the complicated world.

I look forward to meeting more of you in the deep end!