Ethel Irene Seymour (née White) (aka Renée Marquette) Peacefully, in her 101st year on March 16th. Born in December 1912, Ethel led a rich and colourful life shortly after she met her true love, Harold, at Danforth Technical High School in Toronto. Harold made his living in show business with a series of dance acts, and in 1934, during Prohibition, they were secretly married in Montreal between supper-club shows at an illegal speakeasy run by gangsters; their best man was the club's bouncer. Upon returning home from World War II, Harold, who was in the Tin Hats Entertainment Corp of the Canadian Army, formed a dance/marionette supper-club act with Ethel, and became known as Hal & Renée Marquette and Their Marionettes. (Think Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with puppets.) They toured many supper clubs and vaudeville theatres throughout Ontario, Quebec, and New York State in the 1940s and '50s. With the huge expansion of the automobile industry after WWII, the Shell Oil Company hired them to help open up service stations throughout North America. And so they became a touring marionette road show, much like the ancient Punch & Judy puppet shows roaming England 200 years ago but instead operating out of the side of an early version of an 18-wheeler. As well, they played countless Fall fairs in Ontario, Quebec and BC on behalf of Shell, including in Toronto the Royal Winter Fair, the Sportsman Show and the CNE. Hal and Renée Marquette were pioneers in Canadian television and helped to inaugurate the CBC's English-language TV network on its first day of broadcasting, September 8, 1952, with their marionette act. As well, they became the puppeteers for the popular Canadian Howdy Doody TV Show, which began airing in November 1954 and lasted five years. Ethel leaves two children, three grand-daughters, nine great grand-children, and very recently one great, great grand-daughter. Harold died in 1980. Her daughter Marilyn and son Chris (Perth) would like to thank Hilltop Nursing Home in Merrickville, Ontario, and the Carolina Retirement Suites in Perth, Ontario, for their excellent care of Ethel over the past five years. Services were held privately for the family. Those wishing may consider a contribution in Ethel's memory to the Arts or Theatre program of choice. Arrangements are in the care of Blair & Son Funeral Directors, Perth, ON 613-267-3765 or online at www.blairandson.com