Frances Pepler

Victoria, BC - Frances Pepler, a forty-one year resident of Victoria, British Columbia, died peacefully at Victoria General Hospital of natural causes due to complications from a stroke on August 22, 2015.

Born on February 15, 1919 in Craik, Saskatchewan, Frances, known affectionately by friends and family as Fran, grew up in Vancouver. She excelled in athletics and developed an early interest in art. Her formal art education began at the Vancouver School of Art where she studied with noted Canadian Artist B. C. Binning. Other training took place at the H. Faulkner Smith School of Art, Beaux Arts in Montreal and San Miguel de Allende Instituto, Mexico.

In 1943, she volunteered, along with some 600 of her fellow Canadian Red Cross colleagues, to serve overseas during the war. She was assigned to a hospital in London in 1944 during the height of the German V1 and V2 missile attacks and returned to Canada shortly after VE Day in 1945. Fran edited and published two editions of memoirs of her own wartime experiences and also those of her fellow Red Cross companions which currently reside in library collections across Canada. She was also featured in a CBC WW2 documentary entitled "Love + Duty". Among the many honors and medals she received for her dedicated service were the Outstanding Foreign Born Citizen citation from Sertoma and a Golden Jubilee Medal of Honor from the Queen in 2003.

Fran moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa from St. Johns Newfoundland in 1946 and rediscovered her passion for art. Before long, she was doing advertising design and portraits in the greater Omaha community. She set up a home studio and began teaching art to both children and adults. To this day many of her former students give her credit for teaching them to see art in its many forms. She is credited with reviving the ancient medium of encaustics in the Midwestern U.S. and received numerous awards for her work in this medium as well as for her oil paintings, pastels and watercolors.

In 1974 Fran moved back to her beloved British Columbia where she had grown up, this time settling in Victoria. There, she continued with her art and teaching, creating a copious number of portraits and other artwork in the years that followed. She was also a charter member of the Bastion Theatre Women's Committee, a board member of the Juan de Fuca Arts and Crafts Guild and listed in Visual Arts of British Columbia and Federation of Canadian Artists. In addition, she carried on with her love of golf at the Royal Colwood Golf Club.

Last but not least, Fran loved all animals, having a great many dogs (and some cats) throughout her entire life up until her final years.

Fran was predeceased by three husbands: Arthur Norman Martin (1944), Frederick Jackson Day (1995) and Richard Douglas Pepler (2005). She is survived by her loving husband Werner Hunzinger; her sons Grant Martin (Nancy) of Shawnee, Kansas and Ian Day (Jane) of Mill Valley, California; her stepson Marcus Hunzinger (Cathy); her stepdaughters Alex Pepler, Sally Pritchard, Bettina Verroneau and Verena Krueger; grandchildren Jennifer Martin Spencer and Grant F. Martin; Joshua Jackson Day; Simon and Nicholas Krueger; Erika, Vanessa, and Evan Hunzinger; Janine, Karin and Michael Veronneau; and four great grandchildren.

She was a member of the Lutheran Church of the Cross and received the Lord's Blessing by Pastor Lyle McKenzie. A memorial service will be held in the Spring of 2016.