Olga Ivanoff, lives lived.
Mother, Baba, breadwinner, romanticist. Born April 30, 1927, in Toronto; died Aug. 9, 2016, in Richmond Hill, Ont., of kidney failure, aged 89.
My mother told stories of growing up in Cabbagetown on a street where almost everyone was Macedonian. Her parents settled in Toronto after arriving from Macedonia during the Balkan Wars, and Olga was born in 1927 on the kitchen table of 23 Blevin Place.
Her father was involved in several businesses, and for a time the family had the only telephone on the street, so when the phone rang it was usually for somebody else and Olga would be sent to fetch them. It was truly a village in the city.
She was always an A student and was eligible for university scholarships, but her parents had the old-village mentality that girls did not need that kind of education. So she enrolled at Shaw College for a legal secretary program. She was hired two weeks before graduating.
In 1951, Olga met Mladen Ivanoff when he joined the church choir. He was very bold, according to Olga, and asked her out. They were soon engaged and then married on June 1, 1952. Olga continued to work at the law firm but when she was obviously pregnant in 1953 they let her go, as was customary at the time. After being home for only a few weeks she went back to work, and her mother came every morning to look after the little one. Another son, my brother Rick, followed two years later.
When Mladen moved the family to California in 1962, my mother was the first to get a job. She worked as a legal secretary in Beverly Hills. Occasionally she would tell us of some of the famous movie actors who she would meet, but she wasn't one to boast.
Because the Bulgarian church in Hollywood did not have Sunday school, she enrolled her sons in the local Presbyterian Sunday school. She felt it was important to have a sense of something greater than we can touch and see.
In 1972, the family moved back to Toronto, and Olga found work at North York City Hall. By the time she retired 20 years later she was eager to help look after the grandchildren. She loved being a Baba and was always there to help.
When Mladen had to live in a nursing home, my mother moved to the Canadian Macedonian Place, just down the street, allowing her to go there every day to visit. This was a very difficult time, being separated after 60 years of marriage.
When Mladen died, she was devastated. Her health quickly deteriorated and she was sent into the Palliative Care Unit of Bridgepoint Hospital. She liked it there with its million-dollar view of the city, and with good care and her positive attitude she recovered enough to be kicked out of palliative care to live in a retirement home.
Olga had a strong sense that there is a world beyond what we can touch and see, a world we return to when we leave this life. She was not afraid of dying.
In her last month, we saw her beginning to give up, but when asked she always said she was fine. "I'm perfect. Don't worry, now go home and do what you need to do and let me rest." And that is how she left us. She is fine. We shouldn't worry. We should just do what we need to do.
George Ivanoff is Olga's son.