Callwood, June, 1924-2007 : Social activist, journalist, and author June Callwood has written thirty books, founded dozens of social institutions and movements, and received sixteen honorary doctorates from Canadian universities. She was born in Chatham, Ontario, in 1924, and after dropping out of high school in 1941 went to work as a reporter for the "Brantford Expositor". She moved to the "Globe and Mail" in 1942 where she met and married sportswriter Trent Frayne in 1944. As a homemaker raising four children, she embarked on a career as a freelance journalist and broadcaster. Her writing for magazines like "Maclean's" and "Chatelaine" brought her widespread recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, as did radio work for the CBC. She became a columnist for the "Globe and Mail" in the 1970s and 1980s, decades when she increasingly devoted her writing toward social and health issues, but which also addressed subjects like women and the law, Canadian history, biographies, and ghost-written autobiographies, perhaps most notably Barbara Walters' "How to Talk to Practically Anybody about Practically Anything" (1970). Callwood's own books included "Love, Hate, Fear, and Anger" (1964), "Canadian Women and the Law" (1973), "Portrait of Canada" (1981), "Emma: A True Story of Treason" (1984), "Emotions: What They Are and How They Affect Us" (1986), "Twelve Weeks in Spring" (1986), "Jim: A Life with AIDS" (1988), "The Sleepwalker: The Trial that Made Canadian Legal History" (1990), "June Callwood's National Treasures" (1994), "Trial Without End: A Shocking Story of Women and AIDS" (1995), and "The Man Who Lost Himself: The Terry Evanshen Story" (2000). Biography in her hands was a vehicle for exploring controversial social issues and fighting social injustice.
Callwood had emerged in the 1960s as a leading advocate on behalf of the rights of writers and issues of freedom of speech, cultural expression, and against censorship. She was a founding member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in 1965 and served continuously as a vice-president until 1988. She was a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada in 1973 in which she played a leading role in the development and expression of its policies on freedom of speech, censorship, obscenity, and libel law. A natural progression of this work on behalf of writers led to her involvement in the Periodical Writers Association of Canada, International PEN, and Amnesty International. Similarly, she began to work for the rights of prisoners in Canada, becoming a Director of the Canadian Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty and initiating a successful campaign in 1977 to close Toronto's notorious Don Jail. Callwood's activism and advocacy turned increasingly in the 1970s and 1980s toward the rights and welfare of women, children, and youth. Her work as a journalist and author dovetailed with her outspoken concern and involvement in a variety of social causes and movements to make her a powerful force for reform in the city of Toronto-and in the nation at large. She helped establish Digger House in 1967, a youth hostel in Yorkville, Women for Political Action in 1972, and was the founder and first president of Nellie's, an emergency shelter for women established in Toronto in 1974. She devoted much of her effort in the feminist movement toward winning and defending reproductive choice for women. She was a founding member of the Canadian Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Law in 1974 and of The Issue is Choice in 1982, and was a trustee of the Pro-Choice Defence Fund. The 1970s also saw her working on behalf of children and youth through the Learnx Foundation, which supported programs in experimental education, and Justice for Children, created in 1977 to protect the legal rights of children.
Callwood used the practical experience gained with Nellie's and other initiatives in the 1970s to make the following decade very productive, establishing and guiding several organizations that provided service to the disadvantaged in Toronto and agitating for reform at the provincial and national levels. She founded Jessie's Centre for Teenagers in 1982 to provide support to pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers in Toronto, and became a director of Maggie's in 1985, a self-help project to support Toronto prostitutes. Her involvement in palliative care and health issues led directly to the founding of Casey House Hospice for AIDS patients in 1987. Her prominence in the social reform movement also made her a target in the era of political correctness. As chair of the Canadian branch of International PEN, she organized an event in 1988 at Roy Thomson Hall to raise funds to bring writers from India, Africa, and South America to its conference in Canada. Local black writers picketed the event and refused invitations to join the conference. The incident played out in the press, smearing her reputation. At Nellie's in 1991, an employee and former resident denounced the staff and board as "racist". Personal accusations of racism convinced her to resign in February 1992 from the board of the shelter she had founded 18 years earlier. The issue spread to the Writers' Union of Canada where a small group of novelists challenged her chairmanship. The allegations sullied her public reputation, former friends deserted her, and offers of public speaking engagements dried up. But ultimately her proven track record of aid to the disadvantaged and a small coterie of influential supporters and admirers who did not desert her helped her weather the storm and even win the Harmony Award in 1999 for promoting racial tolerance and diversity. Since the late-1990s Callwood has concentrated her efforts on co-chairing the Campaign Against Child Poverty.
Her personal life has not been without tragedy. Her daughter Jill Frayne was struck by a cement mixer in 1980 which left her virtually crippled though years of physiotherapy brought about a complete recovery; her son Brant Frayne was diagnosed in 1993 with multiple sclerosis and a brain aneurysm, surgery for which left him partially paralyzed. Her other son Casey was killed by a drunk driver on Highway 401 in 1982 while returning to Queen's University.
