PEPI BERENYI

July 16, 1952 – July 17, 2025 Born Margaret Gabriella Berenyi to parents Ilona and Leslie, she was nicknamed Pepi and later dubbed "Senorita Pepita the Brazilian Bombshell." By high school, she declared herself Pepi to the world. Pepi explored, collected, and remembered - art, music, design, cities, ideas, stories, friends. As a teenager, she studied the ads and typography in our father's Graphis magazines, collecting quirky posters and ephemera. She brought a camera to high school, staying up late developing film to amaze classmates. She later captured the beautiful and quirky in her photos. Working in nightclubs, she discovered her love of organizing. After studying graphic design at St. Lawrence College, she worked at Ottawa's Maruska Studios, creating bridges between technology and design. Throughout life, she found and was found by people (and puppies) who delighted and nourished her, as she did them, and never forgot birthday greetings. In Gros Morne National Park, she discovered joy in exploring nature through hiking with friends and trail running. On road trips near home and across the Rockies and U.S., she combined her spiritual reverence for life with a fascination for science. This spring, sudden illness revealed advanced cancer. Close friends supported her through illness and were with her when she died. "…everything beautiful is perishable, each falling leaf at once a requiem for our own mortality and a rhapsody for the unbidden gift of having lived at all." - Maria Popova