It is with enormous sadness, and just as much gratitude for a life so fully lived and loved, that we share the passing of Catherine Ann “Ann” Cargill (née Sheridan), who died peacefully on the morning of August 23, 2026, surrounded by her family.
Born in Cork, Ireland, on April 29, 1941 and raised in Monaghan, Ann carried Ireland with her throughout her life – the family, the stories, the humour, the music and that unmistakable accent everyone loved so much. She came to Canada in 1970 and made it home, while always remaining deeply connected to where she came from.
A few years later, she met the great love of her life, Alex Cargill. They married on August 29, 1975, beginning a partnership that would span almost 51 years of marriage and nearly five decades in their family home on McClarnan Road in Ajax.
Ann and Alex were proof that opposites really do attract. She loved pop music, people-watching, shopping and knowing all the gossip. He didn’t always share her taste in music, never quite understood the appeal of paying attention to what strangers were doing, avoided shopping malls, and genuinely wasn’t interested in the details of other people’s lives unless they wanted to share them with him. But where it mattered, they were a perfect pair. They shared the same values around family, generosity and loyalty, and had plenty of common musical ground in rock and roll, especially when Alex Jr. was the one writing the songs, singing, and playing guitar.
They balanced each other out perfectly, and did so for more than half a century.
Ann was the much-loved mum of Laura Ann Slinn (née Cargill) and Alexander Brinsley Cargill, and felt she’d hit the in-law jackpot with their spouses, Steven Slinn and Elizabeth Cargill (née Sokolowski), embracing them and their respective families as her own.
Her favourite title, without question, was Granny.
Her five grandsons, Brady, Drew, Sam, Charlie and Max, were the undeniable lights of her life. Granny’s philosophy was essentially that whatever Mum and Dad wouldn’t buy you, Granny probably would. There were always too many treats, sweets, ice cream, toys, endless questions about sports and school, and, as the boys got older, just enough deliberately annoying interrogation about girls to make them squirm. She adored them beyond measure. More than anything, she made sure they knew how very special and loved they were.
Ann was also family in every way that mattered to Debbie Slinn, whom she loved like another daughter, and Debbie’s daughter Rylee “MacNamara” Slinn, her original honorary granddaughter and the lone girl in a sea of grandsons. For more than 20 years, she was Rylee’s surrogate Granny, and naturally remained deeply invested in finding her a good man, whether Rylee required the assistance or not.
As the second of Mairead and William Sheridan’s six children, family was at the centre of Ann’s world. She was sister to Deirdre Devine, Valerie Lund, the late Brinsley Sheridan, the late Audrey Taylor, and Declan Sheridan, and a beloved sister-in-law, aunt and cousin to a sprawling family across Canada, Ireland and England.
Each of those relationships was uniquely her own. When Audrey and Declan followed her to Canada, Ann opened her home and helped them make a life here. She was an often-opinionated big sister, protector, confidante and, at times, a mother figure, but always a friend. And no amount of distance could loosen the bond between Ann and her sisters Dee and Val. The three eldest Sheridan gals remained a wonderfully close trio throughout their lives, sustained by frequent phone calls, treasured visits, laughter, shared history and more than a little gossip. Losing her beloved Brinsley and Audrey far too soon left holes in her heart that never entirely closed. There is now some comfort in imagining them together again, with a lot of catching up to do.
Ann was glamorous, creative, generous, hilariously unfiltered and eternally young at heart. Long before she became Mum or Granny, she was Miss Monaghan, winning beauty pageants as a young woman. And she never really stopped being fabulous.
She loved fashion and possessed both extraordinary style and a superhuman ability to find designer clothes for next to nothing. Long before anyone invented “girl math,” Ann understood perfectly well that a stylish designer item found for $9.99 was practically making money.
She loved Elvis and ABBA. She was the original Dancing Queen.
If there was music and Ann was able, she was among the first on the dance floor, usually displaying one of several unmistakable “Sheridan moves” shared by her siblings.
Some of Laura and Alex’s earliest memories of their mum have a soundtrack. Laura remembers being about four years old, dressed from the ‘dress-up trunk’ in a sparkly tutu while Mum put ABBA records on and the two of them danced and sang around the house to Super Trouper. For Alex, it was Michael Jackson – Beat It, Billie Jean and Bad – dancing alongside Ann in his leather jacket and single white glove.
Dancing had gotten Ann into trouble long before that. She delighted in telling stories about getting caught sneaking out to dances as a girl in Ireland, irritating the nuns at school and generally finding just enough mischief to keep life interesting. She was good-hearted to her core, but nobody ever accused Ann Sheridan of being boring.
Later, she became “that mum” – the one other kids wanted to be around.
The Cargill house was where friends came for lunch, after-school visits, and to get ready before going out. Laura and Alex’s friends often told Ann things they weren’t ready to tell their own parents. She was interested in people, genuinely curious about their lives, and quite difficult to shock. She listened without judgment, helped when she could and made people feel safe being exactly who they were.
Mind you, Ann herself had essentially no filter, and if she understood that a question was inappropriate, it rarely stopped her from asking it.
She could interrogate a nurse she’d known for three minutes about why her boyfriend hadn’t ‘put a ring on it’, enthusiastically encourage Debbie to show off her fabulous backside and get dating, or ask Laura and Alex’s friends whether they’d read Fifty Shades of Grey. Somehow, she got away with all of it. It was part of her charm.
She made us laugh. She made us blush. Usually both.
Underneath all of that fabulousness was an extraordinarily kind and generous woman.
Ann didn’t just feel sorry for someone having a difficult time; she did something. She gave clothes, food, advice, money, a place to land, practical help or whatever else she had to offer. Over the years, friends, relatives and even people she barely knew found their way to her when life was difficult. She was curious enough to want the whole story, but she was far more interested in helping than judging.
She devoted much of her own life to raising Laura and Alex, while also providing home daycare and spending countless hours in cold arenas and preparing bikes and teddy bears for parades and picnics. Family summers meant camping trips to Presqu’ile, Sandbanks and Balsam Lake, usually with friends Laura and Alex in tow, bikes for transportation and the kind of adventures that become family stories decades later.
Ann’s final years asked an extraordinary amount of her. As her eyesight and eventually her health and independence declined, she endured one diagnosis, setback, and surgery after another with immense grace and courage. She complained surprisingly little given how much pain she was tolerating, and worried far more about the toll everything was taking on the people she loved. She wanted us out living life to the fullest.
She was strong. She was brave. And she kept getting back up until her body finally couldn’t ask any more of her.
On August 23, 2026 with family beside her, Ann died peacefully.
Ann leaves behind her beloved Alex; Laura, Steven, Alex and Elizabeth; Brady, Drew, Sam, Charlie, and Max; Debbie and Rylee; her surviving siblings Deirdre, Valerie and Declan; her extended Sheridan, and Cargill families and many treasured Godchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends across Canada, Ireland and England and, of course, Rudy, the golden retriever who may have loved Granny most of all.
She also leaves behind an enormous void and an equally enormous collection of stories, which we suspect will be retold for generations.
In keeping with Ann’s explicit wishes, there will be no funeral or traditional memorial service. Instead, we will gather at a later date for a celebration of her life. It will be fabulous.
Details will follow.
In lieu of flowers, you are encouraged to do something Ann would love:
Do something kind. Make someone laugh. Give someone who needs it a little help. Buy yourself something fabulous simply because you love it (and feck it, you deserve it!) Turn up some music and dance.
And if there’s a designer piece hiding on a thrift-store rack for $9.99, buy the damn thing.
Ann certainly would have.
