- Interior decorating and arthropods
What has an interior decorator got to do with arthropods? Sonja Evans-Good shows you the link:
Born in 1936 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Sonja went to elementary school in a catholic nunnery. “Wil is a very catholic town. The parents couldn’t chose where their children went to school, even if they were protestants, as my family was. The boys had their school and the girls went to the nuns, that’s just the way it was”, Sonja explains. After completing elementary and secondary school in Wil, she went to Art College in St. Gallen to pursue her dream of becoming a graphic artist. “Studying through the year, I felt I didn’t quite have that real talent for graphic arts”, she describes her experience at the college. One day, a career counsellor she ran into at the train station mentioned that Kaufmann, one of the big stores in Switzerland which sold mostly lady’s confection, offered a schooling in window decorating and Sonja thought: “Oh, I think I’d like that. And I must say it was probably one of the best decisions I made because it had something to do with fashion, which I loved, it was also artistic and it was just something I enjoyed.”
As a certified window decorator Sonja then moved to Zurich to work for Frawa: “I was a bit of a restless soul and I thought I wanted to move. In this profession you like to move to different places in order to get to know different cities.” Although being offered a job in Gothenburg, Sweden, Sonja signed a contract with a company in Bern. “For some reason, I read an article about Canada in the newspaper one morning. There was no job offering but I thought: “Wow, Canada, I’d love to go to North America to perfect my English!”. First I was thinking about going to California, but I found no sponsor, and then I tried for Canada. Believe it or not, within six weeks I was on my way!” Not even 21, Sonja withdrew from her contract in Bern and got on the ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the only security being the address of a Swiss couple in Toronto that agreed to accommodate her for a while. “It really wasn’t anything, it was just, you know, to go places. That was part of the excitement, I guess. You wouldn’t do it if you weren’t young.”
Within two weeks Sonja got a job at Henry Morgan’s: “Window decorating in those days was a big thing. And if you were good, particularly if you had a European education, finding a job was no big deal.” After a while she went to work for Simpsons (today Hudson’s Bay Company) and then got married in 1962. “Right about then, I was offered a job at an advertisement company, where I had to arrange the settings for the ads. Now that was really the super-job! I’d go to Mercedes Benz and say: “Could you lend me a car for a day?” I worked there until my son was born. In 1967 I started doing voluntary work”
Sonja became a member, board member and president of several clubs and committees such as the Canadian Opera Volunteer Committee, the North York Symphony (now called Toronto Philharmonia), the Sir William Campbell House, the Canadian Swiss Cultural Association, the Swiss Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Swiss Club Toronto. While working as a VIP tour guide for Ontario, in 1984 Sonja was asked to join the Royal Ontario Museum Members’ Volunteer Committee, an offer she was pleased to accept. To become a member one had to participate in a 6-week schooling and then write a paper on a randomly assigned topic: “The topic I drew was “Arthropods”. At the time I didn’t even know what arthropods are! Well, it’s basically bugs with no backbone..”
Despite her very busy life, Sonja stayed in close touch with friends and family in Switzerland: “I have quite a number of cousins left, with whom I keep very close relationships. My whole family stayed in Switzerland, they always thought I’d come back. I never thought I wouldn’t go back either. I just wanted to travel before I settled down. Because once you settle down you might not get to travel. It was just one of those things that hit me one day. It was just the way it worked. It just all worked so well!”, Sonja concludes and smiles.
Swiss Canadian Chamber of Commerce: www.swissbiz.ca
Swiss Club Toronto: www.swissclubtoronto.ca
Canadian Swiss Cultural Association: http://swisscontacts.ca/swiss/createpages/association.aspx
Campbell House: www.campbellhousemuseum.ca
Canadian Opera Volunteer Committee: www.covc.org
Toronto Philharmonia: www.torontophil.on.ca
J.B.
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