Born in Peterborough, Ontario on March 9, 1942, to Bernard Ward Vernon Lee and Germaine Marie Rose O’Shaughnessy, Loreen passed away peacefully on August 6, 2024 at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. Beloved mother to Dera Jardine Nevin and Remington Lee Nevin. She is survived by her brother, Melvin Allen Lee. Her beloved husband, Michael Peter Nevin, predeceased her on November 20, 2022, their 52nd wedding anniversary. Loreen grew up in the Roncesvalles neighborhood of Toronto and studied in Ryerson’s Radio & TV Arts program and at the National Theatre School of Canada. She enjoyed success as an actor, traveling across Canada and to the US, and was acclaimed for her work in revues and cabarets at the Dell Theatre. Part of the 1960s arts scenes in Montreal and Toronto, Loreen held her own alongside people who would become world famous. Family lore holds that she was an inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. An accomplished typist, Loreen worked for Margaret Lawrence and other novelists in residence at Massey College. After meeting Michael in 1969 and starting a family, Loreen was a devoted mother, pouring her remarkable intelligence and creativity into child rearing. She took freelance typing work from OISE PhD students to gain access to research on early childhood education which she applied using Orff, puppetry shows, and language training. Loreen loved to play Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Schubert’s lieder and read widely in philosophy. In mid-life Loreen enrolled in the University of Toronto and earned degrees in music and philosophy, and teaching. She also self-studied theology, which deepened her Catholic faith. Loreen was compassionate, sensitive, charitable, and attuned to the experiences of the marginalized and outcast. Loreen experienced trauma early in life and was a survivor of a mental health system that she felt stigmatized rather than treated her. In later life she wrote a book, Portals of Paradox, about her incarceration and self-advocacy. Throughout her life, home and children were her priorities and her relationship with Michael was her guiding light. Loreen was a visionary, poet, and beautiful soul known for speaking truth to power. She will be deeply missed. Visitation at Turner & Porter Yorke Chapel is scheduled for August 15 from 2-4pm. Funeral Mass will be held at St. Vincent de Paul on Roncesvalles on August 16 at 12:30 pm, followed by interment at Mount Hope Cemetery.