A Celebration of Viive's Life

By Mari Ann Tammark

There are many stories that illustrate the incredible person Viive was - she had interests in many areas and her short life was a rich tapestry of events. Her legacy to us is to try new things, live life to its fullest, have fun, be practical and if it's broken - fix it.

Many of us know what its like to grow up in Canada as children of immigrants. Often our lives at home were filled with ethnic traditions, foods and Estonian. For Viive growing up in Dalesville on a dairy farm, it was a struggle to overcome these differences and "fit-in" when she went to school - after all she spoke neither English nor French. Nevertheless she made many friends, who came over to play with her and Hilda would make supper for these friends.

Once when Ricky Seale came to dinner her mom made a healthy nutritious meal that left him in awe and then he remarked, " Your people eat little trees for supper?!" Viive was horrified and thought now everyone in school would hear about it. She didn't realize that at that time most Canadian families did not eat broccoli and didn't even know what it was.

Growing up on a farm also had its advantages; she had a pet goose - Lucy, who followed her everywhere. Viive hated preparing for Christmas, as she had to pluck hundreds of geese to serve the traditional meal. Well, one day Lucy bit Viive. The next day - Lucy was dinner. … Life on the farm was very real.

Viive became resourceful at an early age. When she was 9 or 10, a cow was calving and it was a breech. So Viive ran to the house to get her father, but he was busy playing cards and told her to turn it over. Sure enough, she put on the gloves, reached in and turned the calf and helped it birth.

Many of her friends remember Viive's birthday as the highlight of the summer. School would be over, St Jean Baptiste Day and Jaanipaev brought the city kids to the country. Until Grade 4, Viive was the only Estonian in the school at Brownsburg - then Arne Luik moved into town and joined her in the classroom.

Viive's success in school led her to leave Dalesville and move to Montreal to attend Concordia, where she met many new people like Ilyana, who she remained friends with for the rest of her life. Upon graduation with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, she worked for the Bank of Monteal, who sent her to Rimby, Alberta. After a few years there, Viive had enough of living in a small town and she asked for a transfer. They moved her to Winchester, Ontario - which was not what she had in mind - so after a few months she quit. (As an aside, several years later Valdo and I were driving through Winchester and I went into the bank to get some cash. They hesitated as I did not have an account with that branch, but then I mentioned that Viive had said it was a good branch, which is why I had stopped there and they still remembered her and gave me the money.)

Soon after she moved to Toronto. Initially Viive stayed with Ene Luik, who was in the process of wallpapering. While helping Ene, Viive glanced down in mid papering, saw a classified ad for a position at the Credit Union, tore it out and said, "I can do that job." The next day, she had an appointment and by noon a new job. It took her only a few more days to find an apartment - despite the shortage in Toronto.

As the Credit Union job required a lot of travel, Viive decided to economize and moved into an apartment with Reet Sillaots and Karin Must that was closer to the airport. There were many fun times in that place! One day, Viive went out to buy a newspaper, and returned home 3 hours later with her new car.

When Viive's job changed and she stayed home more, she moved to Keewatin where she lived across the hall from Anne Marie and directly below Tiiu Sillaots. There were many great get togethers in the apartment on Keewatin. Trying new foods, listening to CDs, telling futures with joss sticks, laughing and discussing how to meet men. I remember visiting Viive and she told me how for several nights the ceiling in her room was creaking and it sounded like it was going to cave in. So she had gone upstairs to complain - only to discover that Tiiu had bought a rowing machine and was exercising.

On weekends Viive liked to drive around the countryside, looking for flea markets and garage sales and had uncanny luck at finding not just good deals, but real treasures. She went to an estate sale and purchased a beautiful living room carpet - that had exactly the right colors to match her décor. When she unrolled the carpet at home, she found something stuck in the pile, it was a loose diamond. Viive later set this into a ring.

Viive loved to entertain and we loved going to visit. Her collection of placemats, napkins, demi-tasses, spoons and knives would make Martha Stewart green with envy. She often made brunch on Sunday morning. There was always something different, eggs benedict, fruit salad, croissants, champagne and orange juice. In the background, she would play (Enya, Mägi, Nancy Martinez - just to name a few.

Viive always enjoyed her time with children and had 3 godchildren who she adored: Susan McCartney' son, Toomas Tammark and Linda Paul's daughter. They all adored her as she knew what interested them.

In the early 90's, Viive left her job at TDSI to become an entrepreneur. She launched her entrepreneurial career with an assignment through CESO to help small businesses establish themselves in post Soviet Estonia. There she met Kersti and Argos, who owned one of these businesses. It was tough doing business in Estonia with very few English speakers and no ATMs, no electronic fund transfers and no winter clothing. Viive had to take a boat to Finland to get cash and purchase a pair of boots while she was there. She managed to have some fun, like the evening at the Viru Kabaree. After the show, the audience was invited to dance and Oleg asked Viive for a spin. Viive and Oleg twirled around the floor and when they went back to their table, the audience clapped. However, that was the end of Viive's career as a dancer, she retired after that performance.

Then Viive worked with a group of Toronto based dentists (headed by Dr. Reet Roman and Dr Maret Truuvert) and EERO to arrange funding from the Canadian government for a Canadian-Estonian Dental exchange program. She obtained donations from dental supply and pharmaceutical companies, coordinated the Canadian dentists to travel to Estonia, deliver lectures and then to bring an Estonian group to Toronto to observe our dentists in practice. Viive was recognized by Tartu University for this effort and it was well received by both the Canadian and Estonian Dentists.

In the past few years Viive became very interested in genealogy. She researched her family tree back to the late 1700s, and then embarked on an exhaustive investigation of the Holsmer and De La Gardie family, starting in Eesti and going back to the 1300s through Sweden, Germany, England and eventually found the family origin as aristocrats in France. She visited many of the sites in Estonia related to these families. On a recent trip she was dining in a posh restaurant in Tartu that had a menu in English. Viive always tried to help, whenever she saw something not quite right. She took the time to point out to the restaurant owners that "pork with spit" and "overfried potatoes" may sell better if they were called shishkabob and homefries, which were the correct translation.

These last few years have been tough in many ways. Once the problem was diagnosed, Viive realized that there was very little information available to relatives of people with brain tumors. Hence she conducted extensive research on the internet and other avenues and developed a guide for brain tumor patients. She was a founding member of the Gerry and Nancy Pencer Brain Tumour Centre at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. She did what she could.

Despite her illness, she cared for her father during the last months of his life and when he passed away this past January, Viive organized a memorial for him, held in June at the farm, knowing that she may not be there herself. In the end, she could not attend, but she was fully cognizant all that day and totally focused on the day's events.

Viive was always there to help in anyway, to be a friend and she will be missed - we have a big hole in our lives. A gift to Ene captured this well. It said: "A garden of friends is always in bloom." Thank you Viive!