Elizabeth Schep.Courtesy of family
Elizabeth Schep: Outspoken. Matriarch. Artist. Pen-pal. Born Oct. 11, 1928, in Schoonhoven, the Netherlands; died June 2, 2025, in Ottawa, of infection; aged 96.
Elizabeth Schep was known for speaking without a filter, commenting on people’s fashion choices, baldness, weight and the like. When she inevitably caused offence, she was quick to berate herself and to apologize, sometimes for months after the fact.
Though she could be blunt in speech, her prolific portfolio of paintings showed a softer side – one that appreciated the beauty of nature and her surroundings. In pastel and watercolour, she depicted landscapes, family members, significant buildings and her favourite subject of all: flowers. Her artwork adorned the walls of her home in Ottawa, as well as family members’ homes across Canada and beyond.
Born in the Netherlands to Gerard and Neelje Wisse, she was the second of four daughters. Fond childhood memories included bicycling with her family and visiting museums and galleries, instilling a love of history and art from her early years, influencing her later studies at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
Still a preteen when the Second World War broke out, Elizabeth became severely ill with paratyphus, an often fatal infection at this time when antibiotics were not readily available. Elizabeth’s father spent hours every day visiting nearby farms to barter or beg for food to sustain her. Additional help came from her doctor, who lied to the local Nazi soldiers, informing them that Elizabeth’s diagnosis was the more contagious and severe typhoid fever – the extreme fear of which led them to avoid sheltering in her home, leaving more space for recovery and more nourishment to go around.
Following the war, Elizabeth met Arie (Harry) Schep at a youth gathering while peeling potatoes. Soon thereafter they had their first date visiting the tulip fields north of Leiden, and Harry began regularly cycling the 13 kilometres between their towns to visit. After the war, Arie was keen to move abroad for a new start and the couple became engaged. Harry left for Canada in 1954 and Elizabeth followed soon after, crossing the ocean by ship and landing at Pier 21 in Halifax, where she caught a train in the snowy, cold winter to meet Harry in Toronto. They married in 1955 in Hamilton, Ont., and moved over the years (for Harry’s work in accounting) from Toronto to Barrie to Perth, Ont., as their family grew, welcoming first daughter Winona, followed by sons Gerald, Michael and Andrew. They eventually settled in Ottawa in 1979, where they would spend the remainder of their lives. She and Harry were devoted members of Calvin Christian Reformed Church in Ottawa for many years and part of a close-knit community of parishioners there.
Though Elizabeth could be strict as a mother, she was also full of surprises: upon catching son Michael smoking in the basement in his youth, she began to scold him, then interrupted her own lecture to borrow his cigarette and show him how she could not only blow smoke rings, but also produce smaller ones that travelled through the centre of the original ones before expanding thereafter and floating away.
Elizabeth was a voracious reader of many genres and her competitive side showed during games of Scrabble, where she was known for questioning other players’ word choices and insisting they be checked in the Funk & Wagnalls dictionary. She was a devoted pen-pal to friends and family across Canada and abroad, and her grandchildren recall her uncanny ability to time her mail so that birthday cards would seem to always arrive right on the actual date. She was a fiercely proud grandmother to her 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, who miss her dearly.
Laura Schep is Elizabeth’s Schep’s granddaughter.
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