Land O'Lakes Emmanuel United Church Minister, wife, die in car accident

Jeff Green | Nov 15, 2019

Word came early on Monday that the two women who died in a car accident on Highway 7 near Innisville (between Perth and Carleton Place), were D’Thea Webster and Maureen O’Neill, who were travelling to the Ottawa area that day for their grand-daughter’s birthday.

An OPP report said that Webster and O’Neill, who were 63 and 81 years old, respectively, died as the result of their injuries in the crash. The 68-year-old driver of the other car was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Church elders from Land O’Lakes Emmanuel (LOLE) United Church in Northrook gathered on Monday to console each other and find a way forward. They were joined by Reverend Judith Evenden, the former reverend at LOLE who is now at Crossroads UC in Kingston. The elders decided to call everyone in the congregation to let them know what had happened, since word was getting out on traditional and social media on Monday afternoon, with the release of the OPP report.

They were in shock themselves, of course, saddened by the loss of the two women who had come into their community just a few years ago to complete the transformation of their church.

“D’Thea got involved in everything. She joined the Lions Club, she joined the Friends of Bon Echo. She was really committed and well accepted by the congregation,” said Marilyn Bolender. “It’s hard to digest all of this.  I saw them both on Saturday. They came into the Clothing Boutique [a thrift store run by the church] to get some books and other stuff for their grand-daughter. This is pretty hard to believe.”

Bev Scott is chair of the ministry and personnel committee at Land O’Lakes Emmanuel. Her job is to act as a liaison between the minister and the congregation. She hasn’t had a lot of work to do over the four years of D’Thea Webster’s tenure at the church.

“She has been very open and approachable, a very caring minister. She also has done a lot of work to complete the transformation of our congregation that began under the previous minister,” Scott said.

When Reverend Webster arrived in Northbrook in September of 2015, she had been in the ministry for three years. At that time, the Land O’Lakes Emmanuel congregation was in flux. Three congregations were in the midst of merging into one, and three historic United church buildings (Harlowe, Cloyne, and Riverside in Flinton) had been sold.

But they had a brand-new church, a converted house in Addington Rd. 2, just north of the Village of Northbrook, a location that is pretty close to equidistant from the three churches that it has replaced.

Eight months later, in May of 2016, Reverend Webster presided over the covenanting ceremony for the new church.

Teri Woods is a member of the Land O’Lakes Lions Club, and hair stylist. She met D’Thea and Maureen soon after they arrived in Northbrook.

 “The first time Maureen came into get her hair cut she said she wanted pink hair, she didn’t want to look old, or feel old. She was a firecracker, the sassiest 81-year-old I knew. D’Thea was my voice of reason. She helped me to find a place of peace. They really complemented each other. “The Lord knew they couldn’t live without each other so he took them home together,”  she said when contacted on Tuesday.

Bev Scott said that D’Thea Webster was on a five-month medical leave at the time of the accident, and that she underwent surgery a few weeks ago. Funeral arrangements for the two women will be announced in the coming days.

(Note - Version edited from print version to correct errors in the quotation in the second too last paragraph)