SMITH

With a grateful heart the family of Lydia Wallner Smith, 89, of Mahone Bay, announce her peaceful and gentle passing on August 15, 2025, at Fishermen’s Memorial Hospital, Lunenburg, embraced in love.

Born on December 9, 1935, in Crotone Calabria, Italy she moved to Austria in 1941 with her parents, Angela and Felix Gössler; two brothers, Oswald and Renato; and sisters, Milena and Irma. During World War II another brother, Erwin, and sister, Olga, were born.

In 1954 she immigrated to Toronto, Ontario where she married Alfred Wallner, from Vienna, Austria. They met on the crossing by boat to Canada and were married November 16, 1958. He passed away suddenly in her arms during a walk through their neighborhood of Bayshore Village, Ontario, on April 3, 2000.

On her first cruise in 2001 she met Peter R. Smith of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and they were married August 20, 2005, at St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. It was a wonderful wedding with family and lots of friends gathered in celebration. Lydia and Peter’s life was full of beautiful times and memories with 22 cruises and spending six months a year on Marco Island, Florida.

Lydia was a Haute Couture designer and is survived by her loving husband, Peter; his daughters, Vicki Jo Bowden, Deborah K. Smith (Carl Hubley); and Lydia's sisters, Milena Wells and Irma Gerhardt, and several nieces and nephews in Europe and in Canada.

Besides her parents, she was predeceased by his first husband, Alfred Wallner; sister, Olga Kindler; and brothers, Oswald, Renato and Erwin Gössler.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to the Dana L. Sweeny Funeral Home, 11213, Hwy 332, Lunenburg. There will be no public service by request. Lydia’s cremains will be interred in the family plot in Orillia, Ontario.

In lieu of flowers, Lydia requested that memorial donations be made to the Fishermen’s Memorial Hospital in Lunenburg.