Mildred Clare Fleck

1906 - 2005  (99 years)

• Name	Mildred Clare Fleck
  Born	6 Mar 1906	Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States   [1]
  Gender	Female
  Name	Mildred Clare Snyder
  Residence	1970	100 Queen St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-123666
  Died	24 Aug 2005  [1]
  Buried	Calvary United Brethern Cemetery, St. Jacobs, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Person ID	I123666	Generations
  Last Modified	12 May 2024

  
  

  Family	Clive Snyder,   b. 1 Mar 1901, Woolwich Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 10 Jan 1970  (Age 68 years)
  Married	2 Feb 1935
  Children	1. William Snyder   2. Clive Edward Snyder,   b. 9 Sep 1936,   d. 20 Nov 1938  (Age 2 years)
  Last Modified	13 May 2024
  Family ID	F35701	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  SNYDER, Mildred Clare Fleck - Died peacefully in her sleep, on Wednesday, August 24, 2005. She was predeceased by her husband, the late Clive Snyder, and one son Clive Edward Snyder, by her parents, the late Edward Fleck and Marie Maude Anderson Fleck, by brother Paul Melvin Fleck and sister Marie Maude Fleck Martin. She leaves her son William Fleck Snyder, and Granddaughters Elizabeth, Caitlin and Emily. She was Godmother to Diane Duffield and Susan Coleman Boyd. The family wishes to thank Gerry and Liz Langbein for their kind and loyal friendship to Mildred Clare Fleck Snyder and to remember a kind and loyal friend, Mr. T. Dawson of Portugal. Visitation at the Ratz-Bechtel Funeral Home, 621 King St. W. Kitchener will be from 2-4 and 7-9 on Sunday, August 28. Family will be in attendance. A service will be held at 1 p.m. at the Ratz-Bechtel Home, on Monday, August 29. Interment will follow the service at Calvary Evangelical Cemetery, St. Jacobs, Ontario, with a reception afterwards at (Benjamin's Restaurant) in St. Jacobs from 3-5 p.m. The family will appreciate gifts in lieu of flowers to the Men's Hostel of the House of Friendship through the funeral home or online at www.ratzbechtelfuneralhome.com THE RECORD, Kitchener, Ontario - Aug. 26, 2005 ___________________ "Age, infirmity didn't slow woman's travels : It was midnight when Gerry Langbein stood scanning the crowd in Maui's airport arrivals area. Then he spotted her: a frail, blind 98-year-old with bad hips and a fused spine resulting from multiple surgeries. For Mildred Snyder, age and infirmity were simply a nuisance, not enough to stop the intrepid world traveller. 'She was one of a kind', said Gerry, a favourite taxi driver and long-time friend of the Waterloo senior. 'I took her everywhere'. On that day in Hawaii, Gerry drove Mildred back to his vacation condo, where the two stayed up sipping brandy and chatting till 3 a.m. She'd already been awake more than 24 hours and at one point she called her son, William Snyder, at his home in Glacier, Washington. 'I was not amused', says William, who admits this was but one example of a lifetime of surprises. 'She didn't have a sense of limitations. When I was very young, we would get letters and telegrams from her, from Zanzibar, Alaska, Barbados or someplace in Africa or South America. She was this mythical person, larger than life'. After Mildred's death on Aug. 24, William fingered through an address book, reading 'page after page after page' of people's names and details of hotels in the most remote parts of the world. Mildred always travelled alone, scooping up new friends along the way. 'I dislike getting on a bus with a group and being bossed around', she said once. In fact, the only time she joined a tour was in the 1970s, when she went to China. Her group was only the second to be allowed into the Communist country. Mildred was born in Michigan after her mother left their Georgetown, Ont .home to give birth in the United States, returning with the newborn a few weeks later. Her father was Edward Fleck, a successful industrialist who ran a pulp and paper mill in Georgetown. As a young woman, the eldest of three, Mildred developed a steely, independent attitude and often travelled with her father. Father and mother were not people to be trifled with, but Mildred was an intellectual and emotional match for both. But this kind of unflinching determination did not make Mildred's adult life easy. She married industrialist and St. Jacobs native Clive Snyder in 1935.Theirs was at times a troubled marriage, further strained after two-year-old son Edward drowned. Mildred's heart was broken but not her spirit, and when her husband died in 1970, she moved to Portugal for more than a decade, eventually returning to her beloved Canada. Despite her privilege background, Mildred wanted to fully experience the world, both its beauty and ugliness. In Hawaii, in the 1930s, she visited a leper colony and she volunteered in the slums of India and Tibet. During her travels, Mildred met some of the world's most controversial leaderes, including Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. She trod to the top of Peru's Machu Picchu in a group that included Prince Philip and, when she was 80, hiked up Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro. 'I have to get to the top of everything...but I'm a trekker, not a climber', she said later. 'I only went to the first base camp at Mt. Everest. I know my limitations.' After spotting a group of peace-marchers in Iceland, she jumped off the bus and walked 32 kilometres at their side. As a teenager, she was a featured speaker at political rallies and had developed a deep sense of social justice. Spontaneous and fearless, Mildred went gliding in Iceland and hot-air ballooning in Mexico. She skied, went scuba diving and, as a young woman, showed horses, golfed competitively, entered an international car race and learned to fly. She also got to know First World War flying ace Billy Bishop. William describes his mother as an acress who always loved to be in the spotlight. He chortles when he recalls the family receiving a message that Mildred had been kicked out of a bar in Juno, Alaska, for dancing atop an antique piano. She was 84 at the time and working her way down the Pacific coast in float planes. When she wasn't off on an adventure, Mildred was a generous and dedicated community volunteer, who never sought recognition. Gerry recalls her brewing pots of soup in her Waterloo apartment and hiring a taxi for delivery to Anselma House. A graduate of the Univ. of Guelph's Macdonald Institute, she taught home economics at a Waterloo high school. During the war, she headed up the Red Cross and taught low-cost cooking. Former employee Cecilia Kekish talked about Mildred's kindness, how she treated her like family. In 1986, she lost most of her sight overnight through macular degeneration. But Mildred continued to travel for months at a time throughout her 80s and 90s. Though a gourmet cook, she was petite and not usually one to over-indulge. Instead, the sweet, polite traveller fulfilled her yearnings by venturing into the world's most dangerous places, endearing herself to all she met. Perhaps they could see that she was simply a woman with a restless spirit, that she wanted to explore the world and all its marvels. Mildred Snyder leaves behind her son, William of Washington, along with three granddaughters and one gr-grandchild." KW Record of Thurs., Sept. 8, 2005 'Lifetimes' column

  
  

• Sources

  [S3231] Find A Grave, Cemetery, C., America, N., Municipality, W., & Cemetery, C. (1906). Mildred Clare Fleck Snyder (1906-2005) - Find A... Retrieved 15 August 2020, from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18559171/mildred-clare-snyder.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 6 Mar 1906 - Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States Buried - - Calvary United Brethern Cemetery, St. Jacobs, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth