HOLMES, Mary Elizabeth (nee Taylor) - Peacefully in the afternoon, March 24, 2009 at Headwaters Hospital, Orangeville, a few weeks after her 100th birthday. Raised on a farm near Owen Sound, her earliest memory was of newspaper pictures of the Titanic when it sank. Mary was an excellent student, and graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Degree in Latin and Greek just as the Great Depression hit. While teaching in Brockville in 1942 she married Robert Holmes, a junior officer in training at the nearby army camp. After the war, she taught at Brampton High School for many years, inspiring young people with the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome. Having survived breast cancer in her 50s, she gave many more decades of unreserved love to her three children, grandchildren, and great- grandchildren. Of all the euphemisms for death, Mary preferred the notion that the boatman Charon would convey her across the River Styx to the Underworld, there to meet the shades of Socrates, mighty Achilles, and the other immortals. Donations to the Cancer Society in lieu of flowers, please. Contact Corbett Funeral Home, Chatsworth, Ontario, 519-794-2631, for service particulars this weekend.