Joyce (Edith) Schroeter (nee Asling) was a generous, loving and energetic wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, with a solution-oriented attitude. Always independent-minded, she was thoroughly modern with great faith in education, science, modern medicine and government social programs.
Born on July 26, 1922 in Toronto, she was the second and youngest daughter of English immigrants, Arthur and Gladys Letitia Asling (nee Coles). She grew up on Benlamond Avenue in Scarborough. Her mother died of “consumption” on December 27, 1928 when she was only six and half years old. Her father, Arthur Kirkham Asling, was a cavalry officer who fought in the Boer War.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s her father was often away working or looking for business opportunities, so she raised herself with the help of her sister, Beatrice Sawyer, seven years older, the family’s housekeeper, and some of her neighbors. She attended Malvern Collegiate Institute, put herself through Normal School (teacher’s college) graduating in 1942 and distinguished herself as a caring, dedicated, and effective educator. She and childhood friend since kindergarten, Mary Stamps, were hired by the Toronto School Board as two of its first kindergarten teachers.
Joyce loved music and dancing. During the Second World War she met her future husband, Arthur Richard (Dick) Schroeter at a folk arts society. Dick, a German immigrant who came to Canada in 1929, played the violin and loved to dance as much as Joyce. They joined a Danish folk dance group and the youth hosteling association in Toronto and spent their free time dancing, cycling, camping and cross-country skiing.
They married in 1945 and moved to the former Village of Markham where they raised 3 children. Her husband had a custom carpentry business. She taught primary grades at Franklin Street and James Robinson schools over 4 decades, retiring in 1983 from the York Region District School Board. She will be fondly remembered by many of the "Baby Boomers" who grew up in the area.
Joyce and her husband were longtime square and folk dancers and members of the Ontario Folk Dance Association. When she and her husband Dick retired, they were members of five folk and square dance groups. They danced and travelled together once or twice annually with a square dance travel group to places such as the Galapagos Islands and Vietnam. When Dick died in 2000, Joyce continued to travel and dance until she moved to Peterborough in late 2017 to Rubidge Retirement Residence.
In her immediate family she is survived by her children, Stephen Richard Schroeter (Edmonton, AB.), Janet Elizabeth Schroeter (Prince Albert, SK.), and Edward Arthur Schroeter (Peterborough, ON.), four grandchildren: Michael Schroeter, Leslie (Schroeter) Tarulli, Deanna (Schroeter) Sansom, Danielle (Schroeter) Sansom, and four great grandchildren: Andrea Schroeter, Adam Schroeter, Ella Tarulli, and Luca Tarulli.
