Farewell Tribute to Maynard Gertler

Esther Bryan
The Quilt family has lost a long-time member of the Board of Directors, Maynard Gertler. On April 19th, 2011 Maynard passed away at the age of 94.

Maynard was an extraordinary man, one who was recognized with the Order of Canada and many other awards for his contributions to Canada and to humanity. Born and raised n Montreal, as a young man he attended Queen’s University in Kingston, then studied and taught at Columbia in New York and at Cambridge in England. He served in the Roosevelt administration and was an advisor to Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

He and his wife Ann co-founded a radio station as well as the respected publishing firm, Harvest House Books. Together they worked tirelessly on peace and humanitarian initiatives. In recent years, Maynard was most active with Peace Now, the Raoul Wallenburg International Movement for Humanity as well as Quilt of Belonging.

To quote a portion of the memorial written by his family, Maynard will be remembered as “husband, father and grandfather, scholar and teacher, publisher and farmer, defender of Canadian unity, public servant and civil libertarian, peace and human rights advocate, environmentalist and athlete.”

My fondest memories were of our long talks together when Maynard shared his views, his dreams of peace for the world and his deep love for humanity. He envisioned the world as “a horizontal mosaic”, an ideal he saw reflected in the Quilt. He often quoted Albert Einstein’s words “Remember your humanity”, and valiantly, Maynard strove to live by those words right up to the time of his passing.