Laura Jane (Chisholm) Carter

Laura Jane Carter

January 6, 1942 - November 17, 2025

Laura Jane Carter (née Chisholm) departed this life peacefully with her daughters and son-in-law at her side on November 17th, 2025. Fighter to the end, she died on her own terms after living courageously with progressive pulmonary fibrosis and other complex health conditions for several years.

Born in 1942 in Wiarton, Ontario, Laura trained as a singer at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto before becoming a secondary school English teacher. 

Following a life-altering head-on collision in 1981, she turned to painting and had her first solo show at a Toronto gallery in the Yorkville neighbourhood just four years later. 

She would go on to become a juried member of the Ontario Society of Artists, the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour and the Society of Canadian Artists, painting extraordinary watercolours and oil and acrylic canvases of Georgian Bay, the Arctic, and Newfoundland where she received studio grants and fell in love with the province, returning to visit many times. Her work is represented in corporate and private collections across Canada and internationally and a sampling can be viewed at www.lauracarter.ca 

In the 1990s, she joined the Barrie Canoe Club and experienced many multi-day excursions on Lake Superior, Georgian Bay, and other waterways, including Voyageur reenactments in 36-foot-canoes with the Friends of the Voyageurs. When she met her second husband Dr. Ulrich Kretschmar, a geologist and avid paddler, he joined her. Together they embarked on several other incredible journeys from an off-the-beaten-path trip to Uganda to a cruise around Tierra del Fuego to their elopement on a glacier in Iceland and many more. 

The story of her life has been captured in "Life by Accident", a memoir she began during pandemic lockdown. In her usual fashion, she committed herself wholly to this new creative outlet and the book is now available through Amazon. 

She will be deeply missed by daughters Carey Carter and Lauren Carter and son-in-law Jason Mills, grandsons Mitchell Agema (Letizia Firmani) and Jake Agema, nephew Christopher Budd, niece Caitlin Chisholm, and extended family members and friends in Ontario and in Winnipeg where she spent the final three years of her life.

Laura was predeceased by her parents, Laura and Herman “Duff” Chisholm; siblings Mary Kellar and Clive ‘Scott’ Chisholm; nephew Sean Chisholm; son Timothy Carter; and husband Ulrich Kretschmar. 

A celebration of her life will be held in summer 2026 in Orillia, Ontario where she was a founding member of the Orillia Fine Arts Association and the Orillia Vocal Ensemble. She also contributed several public art pieces to the community, including the watercolour painting Adrift in Time which hangs in the Orillia City Centre and her painted Leacock chair outside the boathouse at the Leacock Museum.  

Memorial donations can be made in lieu of flowers to your local choir, orchestra, or art gallery or a charity of your choice. If desired, condolences for the family can be sent to: Box 41 Grp. 224 RR2, Selkirk, MB, R1A 2A7. 

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