Obituary for Sheryl Loeffler

With great sadness, we announce the sudden passing of our much-loved stepmother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend, Sheryl Elizabeth Kandel Loeffler on January 12, 2024. Sheryl was 74 years old.

Sheryl was a writer and musician who lived and worked in Canada all her adult life. She holds degrees from Wittenberg University and the University of Waterloo. She also pursued doctoral studies in Renaissance Drama at the University of Toronto.

She was a church organist and choir director for numerous churches in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and organized choir festivals and directed musical and liturgical performances throughout her career. She sang with the Renaissance Singers for many years and performed in many Canadian venues.

When she was organist/choir director at Trinity United Church in Kitchener-Waterloo, she commissioned an anthem by Eleanor Daley to honor Rev. John Ambrose. She asked the composer to include specific musical references and the result was a piece entitled My Master From A Garden Rose, which has become a much-loved, emotionally powerful anthem that is now sung by choirs throughout the world.

During the 1990s, Sheryl served as senior writer at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Telecollege Productions, Inc. Her 12 half-hour scripts on Canadian Political Science were produced and aired for several years on TVOntario.

Sheryl was an advocate for human rights, especially women’s rights, and served the YWCA of Kitchener-Waterloo for many years in development and fundraising. She helped raise funds to establish and maintain emergency shelter and affordable housing for women and their families.

In April 2005, Sheryl jumped off the edge of her known universe to live and write for a full year in Malta, at the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, returning to Canada in May 2006. Her poetry has been published in literary magazines in Austria, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

In 2014, Sheryl published A Land in the Storytelling Sea, A North American in Malta, which was a collection of her poems and photographs chronicling her time in Malta. Sheryl was certified to teach English as a second language which she also did in Malta.

She and her husband, world renown organist, Douglas Haas, returned to Malta nearly every year until Doug’s passing in 2020. Doug was a guest organist at St. John’s Co-cathedral, the grand, high Baroque cathedral in Valletta and Sheryl sang in the choir where they met many friends. Sheryl and Doug felt very much loved and part of the community in Malta. Sheryl, wanting to escape Canadian winters, returned on her own. She loved the people and culture of Malta. She found the country a place of inspiration and great beauty. She was in Malta when she died.

Sheryl is predeceased by her husband Douglas Haas, her father Harry Kandel, and her sister Sue Ellen Kandel. She is survived by her mother Dorothy E. Kandel, her stepchildren Annette Haas and Christopher Haas; her siblings David Kandel and his wife Rose, and Sally Kandel and her husband Jim Wuille; and her nieces Leah Kandel and husband Alex Trott and Amy Kandel and many, many friends.

She was incredibly intelligent with a quick wit and had a sense of playfulness that would bring much joy to those around her. Memorial services will be announced at a later time. In lieu of flowers, gifts in Sheryl's memory can be given to the YWCA of Kitchener-Waterloo [153 Frederick St., Kitchener, Ontario N2H 2M2], St. John the Evangelist Church [23 Water St. North, Kitchener, Ontario N2H 5A4] or St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Malta. She will be deeply missed by her family and friends. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 10 at 11:30a.m. at St. John The Evangelist.