There are a few people you just seem to run across over and over in the course of your working life. Your paths just seem to intertwine naturally over time.
Sometimes that's good and sometimes, it's bad.
In the case of Wilma Davis, it was all good.
I first met Wilma in the late 1970s when we were covering the same story. Wilma worked for The Oakville Journal Record. I worked for The Mississauga Times, two newspapers defunct since 1981.
It was a story about a film chronicling the life of flamboyant gay British actor Quentin Crisp, which was considered so controversial at the time that it was the proposed subject of a public ban.
A short time later, Davis went "over to the dark side" (as those who stay on the editorial side of the great divide refer to it) when she became information officer for Sheridan College. She was a single mother with a daughter to raise and the income in public relations was no doubt a critical factor.
Unlike a lot of PR people, though, Davis still felt like one of us, perhaps because she never pretended the organization she worked for was perfect and she always maintained a passionate interest in the general state of politics.
She had a collection of political buttons collected over numerous campaigns that would be the envy of political junkies everywhere.
She worked for the Peel Board of Education for about a decade. We shared the press table at the old board building on King St. W. (now a long-term care facility) through numerous late evening debates about French immersion busing and school closings, not to mention mill rates and budgets. That was back in the days when trustees really were responsible for policy — and taxes.
After a decade at the board, Wilma moved on to the City of Mississauga where she again gave yeoman service — not just to her employer but to the public through her involvement in several public organizations, including the United Way of Peel in its struggling formative years.
The Hamilton native moved back to her hometown to work for the new amalgamated municipality there and then took a job at the Ministry of Education under Gerard Kennedy. She was most recently employed by the Ministry of Labour.
Earlier this week, she was found dead, aged 57 at her Toronto apartment. She had been in poor health and the pneumonia that had floored her a couple of years ago apparently made a fatal reappearance.
"Wilma was the most unselfish, devoted friend that anybody could ever have," says Maureen Ellis, of the City's communications department, who bonded with Davis during the labourious process of putting together several mayor's galas. "She really knew how to be a friend. Mostly, she really knew how to have fun. She had that infectious laugh and she worked hard to make you laugh. That made a lot of the work so easy. She was a mentor, a teacher and a supportive friend."
John Fraser, former director of education at the Peel board, said, "Wilma was extremely positive and excellent at what she did. Part of that, of course, was that she was very intelligent but she always had such a positive attitude. She was hardworking, loyal, dependable and intelligent. She was an ideal spokeswoman for our organization."
She was also always an advocate for the broader community. Because of her own need for care for her daughter Lisa, Davis was one of those instrumental in the establishment of the Peel Lunch and After School Program, an invaluable pillar of the community that survives and thrives to this day.
She was also a stalwart political campaigner.
Ward 1 Councillor Carmen Corbasson remembers Davis volunteering for her first electoral campaign in 1994 with the words, "I'll do anything except knock on doors." Not only did she do everything, "but she knocked on more doors than anyone else," recalls Corbasson. "She was incredible."
Most of Wilma's political campaigns were unsuccessful, mostly because she supported the NDP.
She never looked at it that way, though.
Remember speaking to her at a union hall on Matheson Blvd. after a particularly bad electoral night when things hadn't gone well for her party. She was having a "victory beer" anyway because life isn't always about the winning and the losing.
It's more often about advancing the good cause a few inches at a time, she explained. Wilma was always very good at that.
There is visitation tonight from 7-9 p.m. at the Trull Funeral Home and Cremation Centre at 11 Danforth Ave. in Toronto. The memorial service is tomorrow at 11 a.m. in the chapel.
Donations may be made to Wind Fall Clothing Service, 29 Connell Court, Unit 3, Toronto ON M8Z 5T7 or at www.windfallclothing.ca.
Windfall is a charity that provides new clothes to clients of Toronto homeless and emergency shelters.
Still supporting those good causes, eh Wilma?