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Dorothea Sheasby has been a dogged and patient partisan for the peace movement in this town, but the burden of the effort —and the great maw of silence that usually greets her efforts — has taken its toll.
Sheasby is the rightful heir to Helen Tucker, the colourful, slightly eccentric one-woman band for world peace and world government who convinced Mayor Hazel McCallion and City council to declare Mississauga a mundialized (world) city Dec. 18, 1979.
Tucker was Sheasby’s mentor and, in her later years when Tucker lived in Sheridan Villa, Sheasby was her friend and the keeper of the flame. She sorted through Tucker’s voluminous papers which were donated to the Peel Archives and can be viewed under accession 2001.032.
Over the years, Sheasby has attended numerous international conferences and for many years has been the chair of the Canadian branch of the Registry of World Citizens.
She also initiated the formation of the original Amnesty International group formed in 1980 at Applewood United Church, Sheasby has made numerous deputations to City council over the years, advocating for a peace statue, announcing the annual sunrise celebration of the Spring Equinox, getting council to proclaim International Peace Day and organizing a little event to celebrate that annual Sept. 21 date, usually at City Hall.
A group of supporters have been invaluable in keeping the Registry going and Sheasby generously opened her home every month to discussion groups where guest speakers talk about many issues, including the concept of establishing a United Nations Peoples’ Assembly which is one of Dorothea’s great passions.
While visions of ladies of leisure jet-setting around the globe to attend Non-Government Organization conferences where these lofty concepts were batted around may come to mind, the reality for Dorothea was more like a 12-hour bus or train ride to New York City and a stay at the YWCA.
Sheasby once again tried to organize a Peace Day event at City Hall this year but ended up getting bogged down in the paper work — which now apparently includes proof of $2 million in liability insurance which was far beyond the means of her small band of supporters. So Mississauga piggy-backed their Peace Day onto one planned by the United Nations Association in Toronto.
World Citizen Susan Zipp, chair of the Global People's Assembly, came by train from New York to be the guest speaker at Metro Hall in Toronto, where there was no charge for the room.
In an interview where she was accompanied by her daughter, Charlotte Sheasby-Coleman, a board member of the World Citizens for the past 11 years, the 76-year-old Sheasby said that the registry in Canada is winding down, although she stressed it is not stopping.
Difficulties finding and keeping board members mean that the group status will revert to a branch of the World Citizens’ Registry, with Dorothea continuing to act as the registrar for the Paris headquarters.
“We’re not disappearing, we’re going a little lower key,” says Sheasby who plans to spend more time writing her memoirs and tending her beautiful garden.
As Professor Harold Suderman, an advisor to the group said after the decision to wind down was made, “tributes to Dorothea’s tireless, totally committed, enthusiastic leadership in steering the Canadian branch are still coming in.”
Working for months to set up a Peace Day celebration and having 20 people show up is demoralizing, says Charlotte Sheasby, who remembers how as a kid she and her siblings thought of their mother’s work as “embarrassing.” Time and maturity have changed that perspective and Sheasby’s four children and nine grandchildren have some to respect, and obviously, emulate her cause.
Unfortunately, too many of us find it too easy to dismiss peace work as the call of the naive.
In announcing the wind-down of the board, Sheasby said she will continue to work towards specific goals such as a peace garden at Riverwood where a peace pole could be erected.
and re-recognition of the mundialization of the City.
In her open letter to supporters she writes that, “for now, we have every confidence that each of you, like each of us, will continue to work in your own way towards positive change in your communities and around the world.
“For as Arundhati Roy has written, this is what life is all about: ‘To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try to understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.’”
The work of promoting peace will never be finished, says Sheasby, who won’t be looking away. “You can just say: to be continued.”