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Service Details

Service will be held on Saturday, Feb. 28th at 9:00 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 6829 Etiwanda Ave. in Rancho Cucamonga, with a viewing prior to the service at 8:00 a.m. at the same address. Burial will follow at 11:00 a.m. at Bellevue Memorial Park 1240 West G Street, Ontario, CA.

Funeral Company

Stone Funeral Home - Upland

The Story

Margaret Ross Thompson, 91, of Etiwanda, CA, passed away Feb. 12th, 2015 at home. Born Margaret Ross McCann on Feb. 18th, 1923, in Belfast, Antrim, N. Ireland to Henry and Elizabeth Charlotte Armitage McCann, she is preceded in death by her dear husband Charles Edmund Thompson.
She was loving mother to Elizabeth and Donald Sanders of Etiwanda, Ross Thompson of Pomona, Alanna and Richard Brambila, and Maria Thompson of Moreno Valley. She was grandmother to 10 and great-grandmother to 19. She was preceded in death by her parents and also her siblings Billy McCann, John McCann, Betty Talbot, May Hill, George McCann, and Raymond McCann.
She is also survived by her sisters Hilda Kyle of Newtonabbey, N. Ireland and Eileen Braganza of St. Lambert, QC, Canada.
As a child, Rita excelled in school, but had to complete her education at 14. She worked in bakeries and rose to management before the outbreak of WWII when she left to work in a munitions factory. After the war, she moved to England where she met and married her husband, Ed. They immigrated to Montréal, Canada in 1950 where they had their three children before immigrating to the United States in 1968.
Rita was an accomplished writer and painter and had an eye for décor and fashion. A voracious reader, she especially loved the classics, biographies, and mysteries. At 11, she memorized Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" for a school recitation and, though she didn't understand much of the poem then, it was the beginning of her lifelong concern for her ancestors. She gave many hours of church service as a teacher and family history missionary, but spent her free time researching her own family line, and gathering and writing the stories of her loved ones. She had a strong sense of personal duty to God, family, and society, and she never went against the decisions of her conscience.
Rita was devoted to her family and friends. She scoured the shelves of Hallmark to find the perfect card for each person, never forgetting a birthday or important occasion. As her children and grandchildren grew, she still liked to make a fuss over their accomplishments, ideas, and even new outfits. As her health declined, she continued to take every opportunity to greet the people who entered her home. She was gracious and curious about them and had a kind word for each one. She could bring people into her heart in a way that made them feel safe and welcome, whether she had known them for thirty years or thirty minutes.
Her beautiful soul will be missed by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, family and friends.