BARBARA MICHASIW Obituary

Barbara Michasiw passed away after a lengthy decline on Christmas Eve. Barbara was predeceased by her husband, Eugene (Micky) and is survived by her sons, Mark (Sandra) and Kim (kerry); and her grandchildren, Eugene, Ian, and Miriam. Barbara began her century-long voyage in 1923 as the sole child of Frederick and Lorene Jones (née Palmer). She grew up in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood and graduated from Parkdale Collegiate. She received her BA from Victoria College in the University of Toronto and concluded that phase of her education with an MA in English Literature (her thesis on E. M. Forster). That degree took her to a teaching position at Victoria University on Vancouver Island, a position she left with no little hesitation to return to Toronto to marry Micky and to make the rest of her life in the nascent City of Mississauga (then Toronto Township), particularly Port Credit. In many ways Barbara's path is that of many women of her generation: the comparative independence of the war years and their immediate successors followed by a return to more traditional gender roles. When she returned to Toronto, the Barbara who was a fashionista and someone who had been an editor of The Varsity at UofT asserted herself as she worked in the fashion department at Simpson's and was part of the editorial team of their in-house fashion magazine New World. But, soon enough, there were children and the requisite purchase of a house in the suburbs, and the embrace of the role of stay-at-home mom-a state that never sat easily upon her. So, when her sons were old enough to fend for themselves, she returned to university, having decided that being a professor was what she had always wanted. She completed first an MPhil and then a PhD. And she discovered, again like other women of her generation, that universities lacked interest in women of a certain age, if they could muster interest in women professors at all. The College system in Ontario was distinctly more open and Barbara found a permanent position teaching effective writing, English, and children's literature to generations Sheridan College students and was a mainstay for many years in Sheridan's Early Childhood Education program. Barbara's engagement with children's literature was not confined to the classroom as witness by her long involvement with the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books at the Toronto Public Library and other volunteer efforts. She continued teach, as well after the formal end of her career, through a series of mentorships of troubled middle-school students, some of whom remained in contact until the end. She also taught a series of garden helpers all of the joys and sorrows that gardens bring with them. In her later years Barbara devoted herself to the care and keeping of her heritage house, to her vast and beloved garden, to her kitchen-especially her baking implements-, and to her church. A woman of indomitable spirit, Barbara was able to live independently until after her 98th birthday. When her health no longer permitted the independence she so cherished, she mourned the loss, but managed her more confined horizons with uncomplaining grace. As she was in her long years of independence so she was in her last years a model to many of a life well and fully lived. She will be greatly missed.