EISEN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-11 published
GELBER,
Sylva
Malka, OC, LL.D.
93 years old, Sylva Malka
GELBER, whose years of activism in
pre-Israel Palestine eventually propelled her to be the first
director of the Canadian Department of Labour's Women's Bureau,
died on December 9th, 2003, of complications from a stroke. She
was 93 and lived in Ottawa.
During the heady years of pioneering in gains for women's rights
and Medicare in Canada during the 1960s and 70s, she travelled
the country, never shrill and always reasoned in her campaign
for equality for women in the country's labour force. She took
this pragmatic approach to the United Nations where she represented
Canada on the United Nations Commission for the Status of Women
between 1970 - 74.
A social and industrial activist at heart, she never lost her
zest for a good argument on those issues which had been part
of her adult life since she left her comfortable Toronto home
in the early 1930s for the turmoil of Jerusalem and Palestine.
There she became the first graduate of the Va'ad Leumi School
of Social Work - now the Faculty of Social Work of the Hebrew
University - and took on jobs incongruous with her upbringing
which had included schooling at Havergal College, a private girl's
school.
She worked in Palestine during the Mandate as a family counsellor,
a probation officer and medical social worker at Hadassah Hospital,
and then with the Palestine Department of Labour from 1942 -
48 when she returned to Canada. The adventuresome 15 years Sylva
GELBER lived in the turmoil of Palestine are chronicled with
affection, awe and frankness in ''No Balm in Gilead: A Personal
Retrospective of Mandate Days in Palestine'' published in 1989.
By the time she moved back to Canada, she could switch effortlessly
among Hebrew and Arabic and English which impressed no one in
bureaucratic Ottawa, but did startle the Capital's stuffy side,
she often noted mischievously.
Her deep red lipstick and nail polish when paired with her fast
sports cars belied the image of the traditional Ottawa civil
servant she could never be, despite distinguished and proud accomplishments
in promoting federal health insurance and Medicare until they
became the law of the land.
Along the way, she accepted many appointments to serve Canada
at International Labour Organization conferences, the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations
General Assembly. She was a member of the Order of Canada and
was awarded honorary degrees from several universities including
Queen's, Memorial, Trent, Guelph and Mount St. Vincent.
Sylva Malka
GELBER was born in 1910 in Toronto to Sara
(MORRIS)
and Louis GELBER.
Her father, a survivor of pogroms in Eastern
Europe, was determined that her four brothers, all of whom attended
Upper Canada College, and she, all receive worldly educations
beyond their specific Jewish community. She always admired her
father for this farsightedness in encouraging his children to
become part of a broader society.
At the University of Toronto, she produced plays. She sang spirituals
on a Toronto radio station, but her parents would have none of
a show business career. She was packed off to Columbia University
in New York; but even that did not satisfy her rambunctious spirit
and soon she was on her way to distant Palestine.
Never domesticated as women of her day usually were, she paid
little attention to her kitchen pantry when she finally settled
in Ottawa; but always gregarious, she loved to entertain around
the piano which she played by ear and with great gusto. Her library
of records and Compact Disks, was always in use as music filled
her life; and she has endowed an important annual prize through
The Sylva Gelber Music Foundation, which is granted to an outstanding
young Canadian musician at the early stage of his or her career.
In retirement, she energetically participated in the Canadian
Institute of International Affairs and the Wednesday Luncheon
Club of former cabinet ministers and civil servants, such as
her neighbour, Jack
PICKERSGILL, who thrashed over current political
issues.
Sylva GELBER was predeceased by her four brothers, Lionel, Marvin,
Arthur and Shalome Michael. She is survived by her four nieces
and their husbands, Nance
GELBER and Dan
BJARNASON,
Patty and
David RUBIN,
Judith
GELBER and Dan
PRESLEY, and Sara and Richard
CHARNEY, all of Toronto; her sister-in-law, Marianne
GELBER of
New York; four great nephews and a great niece, Gerald and Noah
RUBIN, and Adam, Andrew and Laura
CHARNEY; as well as cousins
Ruth JEWEL and David
EISEN; David
ALEXANDOR, and Ruth
GELBER
all of Toronto; and Ivan
CHORNEY and Betsy
RIGAL, both of Ottawa.
At Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Avenue West
(1 light west of Dufferin) for service on Thursday, December
11, 2003 at 12: 00 noon. Interment Beth Tzedec Memorial Park.
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EISENHOWER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-05 published
Politician, chef, farmer cooked for presidents
He first came to Canada after the Second World War at the invitation
of the Dutch ambassador
By Randy RAY
Special to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, March 5,
2003 - Page R9
Ottawa -- Anton
WYTENBURG was a proficient chef who had little
time to prepare meals for his wife and 10 children because he
was often too busy cooking for others, including presidents and
other dignitaries.
"He was never a chef at home, because he was always working in
a hotel somewhere or at the bakery, " says his son Rudy of Ottawa,
who says his father's specialties were Dutch pastries and cakes.
At one point, Mr.
WYTENBURG was a cook at the venerable Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York, where he helped prepare meals for
U.S. presidents Dwight
EISENHOWER and Harry
TRUMAN, and president-to-be
John F. KENNEDY. In 1945, he worked as a chef for General Henry
CRERAR at a Canadian Officers' Club in Holland.
Mr. WYTENBURG, a native of Delft, the Netherlands, died in Ottawa
on January 30. He was 83.
The son of a Dutch tailor, Mr.
WYTENBURG completed Grade 8 in
Delft and landed a job at a bakery. Later, he moved to Scheveningen
to work as a sous chef in an oceanside hotel.
While working there, he learned to speak German, French and English
and, during the Second World War, used his language skills as
part of the Dutch resistance in its fight against the invading
Germans.
Later, while working for Gen.
CRERAR,
Mr.
WYTENBURG was asked
by Dr. Jan
VAN
ROYEN, the Dutch ambassador to Canada, to come
to work for him as a chef at the Dutch embassy in Ottawa.
"Anton gladly accepted the opportunity. The Dutch were and are
forever grateful for the support of the Canadians during the
war, " said Rudy. In 1947, he came to Canada to work at the embassy
in Ottawa.
In 1950, when the Dutch ambassador was transferred to Washington,
Mr. WYTENBURG worked as a chef at the French embassy in Ottawa
before buying a bakery in Ottawa that became the first Dutch
pastry shop in the city. The business, renamed Anton's Select
Pastries, later expanded to include five outlets.
In 1952, he married Catharina
VAN
VUGT, also a native of the
Netherlands, whom he met when she was a nanny for the secretary
to the Dutch ambassador. That year, Dutch Queen Juliana paid
a visit to one of Anton's bakeries.
While running their bakeries, the
WYTENBURGs made many Friends,
including some who farmed outside Ottawa and spoke highly of
life in the country. This led them to buy a small farm west of
Ottawa in 1962 and in 1964 would see the family give up its bakeries
in favour of full-time agriculture on larger Ottawa Valley spreads,
first in Richmond and later in Renfrew, where dairy farming would
become the family's bread and butter.
As a farmer, Mr.
WYTENBURG took a keen interest in agricultural
organizations and committees. "He had a way with people, he could
diffuse tense situations and always find a solution, " says Rudy.
Over the years, Mr.
WYTENBURG's sons took on more of the farming
responsibilities, leaving their father with more time for the
many organizations he worked with, including the Ottawa-Carleton
Safety Council and the Richmond Agricultural Society. In the
late 1970s, Friends and neighbours urged him to consider politics.
In 1978, he won a councillor's seat in the rural ward of Goulbourn
in 1980, he ran for mayor but lost; he tried again in 1982 and
was successful, sitting as Mayor of Goulbourn Township from 1982
through to 1991. He was also on the council of the former Regional
Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.
Moving a large family around the community and the farm was difficult,
until Mr. WYTENBURG bought a used, fully stretched Cadillac limousine.
"It sure raised a few eyebrows when we were being chauffeured
to the hay fields in a black limo, " recalls Rudy. "It often
made for a bit of fun when the boys would ask an unsuspecting
gal out on a date."
Mr. WYTENBURG left politics and farming in 1991 at age 72. After
retiring, he continued to volunteer his time to help out on committees
and task forces and as a strong supporter of the church. At the
age of 75, he was the oldest participant in a walkathon for a
local charity.
Mr. WYTENBURG leaves 10 children who live in California, Vancouver,
Calgary, Toronto, Renfrew, Ottawa and
in England. Two of them
continue to operate the family's 440-hectare farm near Renfrew.
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EISENHOWER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-14 published
Thomas MacDONALD
By Joan ROBINSON
Friday,
March 14, 2003 - Page A24
Father, husband, caterer. Born November 12, 1915, in Liverpool,
England. Died January 25, in Ottawa, of a stroke, aged 87.
Tom MacDONALD was the third of nine children born to William
and Mary Ellen
MacDONALD.
The family emigrated from England to
Canada in 1924 and settled in Kingston, Ontario With the outbreak
of the Second World War, Tom and his four brothers joined the
Armed Forces. Tom enlisted in the Canadian Army on January 25,
1940. He was assigned as batman/driver to Lieutenant-General
H.
D.
R.
CRERAR. In 1944, the Kingston Whig Standard featured
a photo of "Cpl. T.
McDONALD" sewing an extra pip on
CRERAR's
uniform, marking his promotion to full General;
CRERAR was then
Commander of the First Canadian Army. During those war years,
Tom served with the general in Italy, Sicily, the Netherlands,
Belgium, North Africa, France and Germany. One of his duties
was to prepare the general's meals; he became proficient at obtaining
and preparing reasonable meals with scant resources. It was during
this time that he developed a keen interest in food preparation.
After the war, Tom remained in the army. Although he had no professional
training, his natural flair for food preparation and presentation
led to his employment in Ottawa by National Defence Headquarters
as organizer and caterer of official banquets and what was known
as "the cocktail party circuit." On a private basis, the United
States Embassy also employed him in this capacity.
Among his effects are letters of appreciation from Ambassador
Livingston
MERCHANT of the U.S. Embassy and one from then-president
Dwight EISENHOWER, thanking Tom for his efforts during the Second
World War, as well as his contributions during two presidential
trips to Ottawa. It concludes: "With best wishes to a former
comrade-in-arms."
During this time he also accompanied General
CRERAR on official
business trips, wherein his role was to assist in the personal
needs of the
CRERAR family. Many of these trips were to major
Canadian cities but in 1947, Tom accompanied General
CRERAR on
a trade development mission to Hawaii, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Manila.
His last international trip took place in the 1960s when, in
a similar role, he travelled to Cyprus with a delegation headed
by Minister of Defence Paul
HELLYER.
In 1965, he was honourably released from the army. He then assumed
the position of steward at 24 Sussex Drive. He served with Prime
Minister Lester
PEARSON from 1965 to 1968 and with Prime Minister
Pierre TRUDEAU from 1968 to 1975. He was again responsible for
the organization of formal banquets and other entertainment.
On one such occasion, a photo much prized by Tom's English mother
shows him in formal dress, standing ready to serve the Queen
Mother.
Although officially retired in 1975, he maintained his interest
in cooking both in his private catering business and at home.
He was a lively, fun-loving man and with his wife, Verena, hosted
many memorable parties wherein his love of people and sense of
humour had full rein.
Tom was proud of his country, his city and his war service. He
could be moved to tears by memories of his war years and every
year that he was physically able he marched in the Veteran's
Day parade wearing his war medals.
In his declining years, he was comforted by the care and companionship
of his family and Friends. At Uncle Tom's funeral they volunteered
their special memories of him. There was much laughter and few
tears as befitted the man. The music of his favourite song We'll
Meet Again concluded the ceremony -- sung, of course, by Vera
LYNN. He will be missed by many, including nieces, nephews, Friends
and surviving comrades-in-arms.
Joan is Tom
MacDONALD's niece.
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