Maxwell's husband died in 1973, having never fully recovered from his heart attack in the 1960s. Maxwell subsequently returned to Canada, settling in Fort Erie, Ontario, where she lived on Oakes Drive. She spent her summers at a cottage outside Espanola, Ontario, where she wrote a weekly column for the "Toronto Sun" under the pseudonym "Miss Moneypenny" from 1979 until 1994, and became a businesswoman working in the textile industry. In 1994, she returned to the UK once again to be nearer to her daughter Melinda, retiring to a cottage in Frome, Somerset. A plaque has been placed on her home there by the Frome Society of Local Study.