June Bantjes, a founding member of the Saskatoon Women’s Calendar Collective (SWCC), died in December 2006. It was her devotion to women’s rights and her interest in their lives that compelled the first Collective, in 1974, to tell women’s stories. While many thought that a publication written by a community-based, co-operative writing group with a changing membership would never succeed, June was among those who proved the nay-sayers wrong. Thirty-three years later, the swcc continues to research, write and publish Herstory. Thank you, June.
June was born 24 April 1930 in England. As a teenager, she attended the famous Badminton school, where she had her first brush with socialist ideas. In 1952, she moved to South Africa, where she met, and married Dennis Bantjes, and had her first two children. She immigrated to Canada in 1959, where her daughter was born. After a divorce, she eventually settled in Saskatoon, where she raised her children on her own, worked, and over a period of years, earned an ma in Sociology. She taught at the University of Saskatchewan and St Thomas More College from 1977 to 1995.
June’s interest in women’s issues, socialism, peace and environmentalism became a lifelong commitment, and she was involved in a surprising number of organizations, often at the executive or steering committee level. Some of those include Women and Drug Use (WADU), which “helped to bring about the cultural shift towards patients taking a much more critical and active role in their own health care;” Women for Childcare Action; Working for Women; the Saskatoon Environmental Society; the Saskatoon Heritage Society and Ploughshares. She was an active member of the New Democratic Party and a well-known figure on picket lines and in demonstrations (usually with her dogs), on the front lines as well as behind the scenes, organizing and motivating others.
June became a part of the fabric of Saskatoon, helping to enact change and awareness for people and issues. She made many friends, most of whom were close to her from the time she met them until the time she died.
June’s style of involvement in the serious issues of the modern world reflected her “old-fashioned” values of responsibility, thoroughness, kindness and concern for others. —Ann Coxworth, 2007
