Memories of Audrey Hozack (née Johnson, Dickie) 1920—2016

Audrey Hozack was one of the most unforgettable people I have ever met. During her term as Canadian Friends of Finland president from 1984 to 1987, she spearheaded the team that staged the 1986 Canadian première of Jean Sibelius’s Kullervo Symphony to an all-but-sold-out house at Roy Thomson Hall. She always claimed that riding on the TTC that evening to the performance was the only time she ever heard Finnish spoken on the subway.

She was one of the founding members of CFF. I can still picture her along with a group of other anxious looking people sitting in Bengt and Carita Gestrin’s spacious living room in 1981 as he, the honourary consul-general of Finland in Toronto at the time, outlined the Finnish government’s hopeful plans to emulate the success of the Finnish Society in the United Kingdom.

Audrey helped make that a reality thanks to the experience she gained over her 39-year career at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus. She started out as a secretary and when she retired in 1985 she held the title of Assistant Warden – Administration.

Her links to Finland were long and strong. They began in 1951 with the first Hart House Finnish Exchange. As a result of those connections, she recruited several former exchange members to serve as executives and board members during CFF’s formative years.

Looking back, Audrey’s life and career echoed many of the themes of Varpu Lindström’s academic work in women’s studies. When Vincent Massey set up Hart House in 1919, it was a male-only bastion like its forebears at Oxford University in England. In its early years, although many of the Hart House clerical staff were women, they were not permitted to eat in the dining hall. After Massey was made aware of the issue, he agreed to change the rules to make their lives more convenient.  However, University of Toronto female students did not become full-fledged members of Hart House until the early 1970s after Massey had died.

Since Audrey’s retirement in 1985, two women have been appointed Wardens of Hart House. It is not hard to imagine that given Audrey’s administrative, financial management, people and other skills, had she arrived on the scene a couple of generations later, she too could have served as Warden.

To recognize her contributions to Finland, the Finnish government named her a Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland in 1986.

~ Ken Mark

Varpu Lindström died peacefully at home on June 21, 2012 surrounded by her family, having lived a life of undiminished love, even with terminal brain cancer for the last three years. Varpu is survived by Borje; Allan and Hanna; Martin, Heidi and Aurora; Sofia and Jason; Mark and family; as well as countless friends and relatives in Canada and Finland.

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Varpu came to Canada as a teenager, received a Canadian education, yet always retained her love of Finland. She founded the Canadian Friends of Finland friendship society in 1982 and fostered cultural relations between Canada and Finland in a variety of ways.

She enjoyed a stellar career as professor of History and Women’s Studies at York University, as administrator, as teacher and as scholar. She held administrative positions in Atkinson College – Director of Canadian Studies, Master of Atkinson College, and Chair of History – serving the larger University as the founding Chair of the School of Women’s Studies, for two decades as senator, one term as faculty representative on the Board of Governors, and successfully as chair of York’s School of Social Work at a difficult time in the school’s history. Varpu received the first-ever Atkinson Teaching Award.

Her scholarship will remain her greatest academic legacy. Her book Defiant Sisters, A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women, 1890-1930 was a doubly pioneering study: it helped establish oral interview-based social history as legitimate history, and was the first dissertation devoted to the history of women. Her subsequent books cemented her reputation as the world’s leading expert on the social history of Finnish women in Canada. Her career as scholar, teacher, and administrator earned her the highest honour York University bestows upon a faculty member: the title of University Professor.

Varpu Lindström conducted the research for the award-winning and Gemini-nominated historical documentary Letters from Karelia about the tragic fate of Canadian Finns lured back by Stalin’s promises of prosperity only to be killed in his purges in the 1930s. In 1991 Varpu was awarded the Knight First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland, and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Varpu Lindström will be remembered for her boundless capacity for love, kindness, wisdom, mentoring, and encouragement.

A private funeral has been held, and a memorial service was held on Friday, July 6, at 2 p.m. at R.S.Kane Funeral Home, 6150 Yonge Street.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the charity of Varpu’s choice, The Canadian Friends of Finland Education Foundation (CFFEF), P.O. Box 278, 27 St Clair Ave. E. Toronto, ON M4T 1L0, or via the “Donate” link on this web site .