June Callwood, Writer And Activist, Dead At 82

June Callwood, social activist, journalist, broadcaster and writer, died early Saturday at the age of 82 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

A prominent activist for people with AIDS, Callwood founded the hospice Casey House in Toronto in 1988 and named it after her son, Casey Frayne, who was killed in 1982 in a motorcyle accident.

“The Casey House community is deeply appreciative to the Frayne family for sharing their precious mother and wife with us for so many years,” Jaime Watt, chair of the hospice’s board of directors, said in a statement. “We send them our love and deepest condolences.”

Callwood was involved in the founding of Digger House, a youth hostel, Nellie’s hostel for women, PEN Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation, and Feminists Against Censorship.

In November 2003, just before she received the Harmony Award for her work in eliminating barriers to diversity, Callwood spoke, with her usual wit, of the cancer that was spreading through her body.

“I’ve been chewing up health dollars at a great rate,” she said, adding that the prospect of dying was no big deal.

Callwood was born June 2, 1924, in Chatham, Ont., but was raised mainly in the village of Belle River.

A bright student who was editor of her school newspaper, the Brantford Collegiate Grumbler, Callwood picked up more journalistic skills at the Brantford Expositor.

In 1942 she moved to Toronto to work at The Globe and Mail.

She married fellow journalist, sports writer Trent Frayne, in 1944 but kept her family name because the Globe didn’t hire married women. The couple had four children, Jill, Barney, Benny and Casey.

She got her pilot’s licence in the late ’40s when Jill was still a baby. And she embarked on a career as a newspaper and magazine writer, prolific author, TV personality, outspoken feminist and civil libertarian that lasted more than half a century.

Over almost five decades, she wrote for Maclean’s and Chatelaine magazines, had a column in the Globe and Mail and began ghostwriting, first for Dr. Marian Hilliard, then Barbara Walters, Otto Preminger and Bob White.

Her own books include The Law is Not for Women (1976), Portrait of Canada (1981), Trial Without End (1995), the story of Charles Ssenyonga, who infected several women with AIDS, and The Man Who Lost Himself (2000).

From 1975 to ’78 Callwood hosted CBC-TV’s In Touch; more recently she interviewed people on VisionTV’s National Treasures.

But it’s as a life-long social activist that Callwood will be remembered by many. In 1968, when she was 44 and called herself a suburban housewife, Callwood was charged with causing a disturbance in a public place — Yorkville, then a hangout for the young people known as hippies, but she called them “children God forgot.” She had been protesting police conduct.

“They put me in a cell smeared with shit, which was a mean thing to do,” Callwood said in an April 1993 Saturday Night story. “I thought I was ruined. In my generation, you didn’t get arrested unless unless you were an awful person. One year later, I was B’nai Brith Woman of the Year!”

Over the years, Callwood picked up numerous honours, including more than 15 honorary
doctorates, the Order of Canada, Officer (1985), the Order of Ontario (1988), the Canadian News Hall of Fame (1984) and the Toronto Arts Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award (1990).

In 1992, she also took up flying a glider, one way to get away from her busy schedule. It was also a difficult and painful period for Callwood. In late 1991 she had been accused of being emotionally and verbally abusive to women of colour on staff at Nellie’s, the women’s hostel she founded in 1974. She resigned from the board in May 1992.

Casey Frayne’s ashes are under a stone on the driveway at the home Callwood and Frayne shared for more than 50 years in west Toronto. It’s the home in which they raised their four children and where she did much of her writing.

When she was 74, Callwood wrote about growing old in the anthology Dropped Threads, What We Weren’t Told. She said she felt no connection with the “very wrinkled, very spotted old woman” she saw in the mirror and that she had retained her childhood “sense of wonder and ultimate aloneness.”

Callwood is survived by her husband, daughter Jill, and sons Barney and Benny.

Casey House has a tradition of honouring lost friends by lighting a candle in the front window. Callwood’s candle will burn for three days.
During that time the public is invited to visit the house at 9 Huntley Street between 8am and 8pm to sign a book of condolence.

Clients and friends have been gathering there all day.

Ten Points On June Callwood:

• Began her career in journalism at the Brantford Expositor
• In 1942, Callwood began writing for The Globe and Mail
• Married journalist Trent Frayne in 1944
• Worked as a freelance journalist, writing books and magazine pieces, many for Maclean’s
• Hosted CBC’s series In Touch from 1975 to 1978; also hosted National Treasure and Caregiving with June Callwood for Vision TV
• Was one of Canada’s most famous social justice activists, founding or co-founding over 50 Canadian social action organizations including youth and women’s hostels
• Founder of Toronto hospice for people with AIDS, Casey House in 1988
• Became a member of the Order of Canada in 1978
• Went public about her battle with cancer
• Passed away early Saturday, April 14, 2007

June Callwood was a founding member of:

PEN Canada

Casey House ( Casey House June Callwood Legacy Fund)

Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation

Jessie’s Centre For Teenagers

• Jessie’s Centre for Teenagers was founded by Callwood in 1982 and her family has asked that in lieu of flowers all donations be directed to:  Jessie’s Centre for Teenagers – June Callwood Fund, 205 Parliament Street Toronto, ON M5A 2Z4

Memorial Procession

• A memorial procession for Callwood is scheduled for Tuesday, April 17. It will start at 8pm at Jessie’s Centre and end at Casey House.