Besides being drawn into her striking blue eyes, her loving cat stories, and childhood memories, Marie Tiboldo at age 99 has given me inspiration, a reminder to be more humble and a greater appreciation of women’s labour and activist history in Toronto.

Marie is not one of the famous women socialists or anarchist figures that many of us have heard or read of such as Rosa Luxembourg or Emma Goldman. Rather, Marie, born to Italian immigrants to the United States and Canada, is a working class feminist and activist leader of her time. I had the opportunity to meet and interview her, and the privilege of becoming her friend, in the fall of 2003.

“I was born September 6, 1904 in Dunbury, Connecticut. That makes me 99 years of age.” Marie moved to Toronto in 1914 at the age of 10. “I’m still here from 1914 because of the war. They needed some high-skilled hat manufacturers. My father was one of six selected to come to Toronto. All for the war effort.”

Both her mother and father were intellectuals. Her mother was involved in many volunteer organizations with other women and her father was influential in a small philosophical group that met every Sunday in different homes discussing philosophical anarchism, the Single Tax Movement led by Henry George and articles in the El Martello (an American anarchist publication).

Later, they affiliated with some members of the Workmen’s Circle who had brought their anarchist ideas with them from Russia, not always in line with those in the Workmen’s Circle in Toronto who had socialist leanings. “My father would buy a bottle of gin and mix it with coffee for these afternoon parties … anyway, every week they would make special preparations. You know like cakes and cookies, real delicacies that were really very good, and a great inducement to hold the discussion groups together was especially that coffee touched off with gin.”

Minerva Davis, in her book The Wretched of the Earth and Me, describes Marie in the following way: “I got to meet Marie Tiboldo [at the Trades Labour Council]…. Marie was a delegate from the International Ladies Garment Workers (ILGW). – the fine embroiders were an affiliated union.... She was young and slim and beautiful and had the profile of a Neapolitan cameo. To me she was Mary Shelly (Liberal British writer and author of Frankenstein) and Krupskaya (Lenin’s widow) and Emma Goldman... all rolled into one… Marie was not a romantic communist; she was not any kind of communist at all, nor was she particularly romantic. She was a philosophical anarchist, a follower of Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin and, nearer home, one who found anarchist resoundings in the writings of Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau. She is a disciple of Emma Goldman’s....”

The anarchist group that Marie and her family were affiliated with followed Emma Goldman’s activities in the United States. Other anarchists and socialists at the time (early 1920’s) began organizing around contraception and birth control. It was quite controversial at the time and birth control distribution was a criminal offense.

“Girls need to know about marriage and love. They probably would have been more fulfilled if they had read about it. You know what I mean? You know sexually.” She continued, “Margaret Sanger and her husband were jailed in the U.S for distributing her brochure titled What Every Woman Should Know.

Marie’s small anarchist circle organized a series of lectures including topics of birth control. Marie was appointed to select a hall and chair the first controversial public speak on birth control in Toronto by Emma Goldman. The meeting was held at the Hyegia Hall on Elm Street.

“When Emma Goldman came here everybody was afraid to discuss birth control, whether it was a professor or doctor. In fact one public health nurse was fired. The Catholic Church was responsible for that because she gave out birth control information. She was a first class nurse yet nobody was able to save her job.”

“They were saying they were bringing the most famous woman in the world to Toronto, they can get an audience for her but no one was willing to be the chairlady. They were afraid to get fired – to be associated with an anarchist. So it fell upon me. I was 14 years old – how was I to know how to be a chair lady? But, they put me through some exercises and, uh, I took the part of being chairlady…I was glad to be near Emma. She was my idol.”

Work, Unions, Strikes

At the age of 16 Marie left school to work. She started working in an embroidery factory at Spadina and Adelaide Street: “Working conditions were appalling.” I asked Marie if she was in a union. “No, but we formed one.” The embroiders became an affiliate to the International Ladies Garment Workers (ILGW). “I did it all alone and I could easily have lost my job. I was at the time supporting my parents, but that didn’t worry me. I had a mission that we would have to be as equal standing to men and were not going to let them run us over. And if I lose my job, well, I’m certainly not going to let them. They’re not going to let me starve out in the middle of the street. I was very courageous about it. I wasn’t afraid about it, you know to take a chance.”

Marie told me she was skilled at hand and machine embroidering. Not long after being hired Marie organized her sister embroiders to go on strike for a five day work week and better working conditions. “You see, in the strike, the men got Saturdays off. We didn’t so that’s when women pitched in and I even went to the newspaper and said we need some publicity here. Why should there be a differential of that sort? We braved 22 degree below zero weather on the picket line, with no unemployment insurance or other support. The company brought in women from Buffalo to do our work.” Eventually they won a five-day workweek and the strikebreakers were sent home.

As a result of her organizing the strike and union affiliation Marie was elected to the District Trades and Labour Council as a delegate from the Embroiders Union. As well, due to her interests and history of organizing, the Women’s Educational Federation of Ontario sponsored her in 1929 for a special scholarship program to attend Bryn Mawr College for Women in Pennsylvania. The summer program was dedicated to women working in industry. Marie was one of 105 students selected to attend and later wrote about the school in Canadian Congress Journal October, 1929.

By World War II Marie was forced to leave the embroidery trade due to vast changes in the industry. She found employment in the radio tube industry at Rogers Electronic Tubes. “I was put to work testing tubes for Lancaster bombers”. Here, as well, Marie organized a union for “the girls” who worked for 30 cents an hour. “Conditions improved and the company gave the women aluminum plate shields from the hot flames”.

I asked Marie what she thought was the political or historical event that had the greatest impact on her. Not surprisingly, Marie referred to her experiences fighting for women’s reproductive choice: “Well, I think the women. The women getting a move on… in those days, birth control was a taboo subject…I was always a strong believer in birth control and feel women should have the freedom of choice in whether or not to go through a pregnancy.”

Other events Marie discussed with me were protests against the Vietnam War on University Avenue in Toronto, the film premiere at the University of Toronto in 2000 on Emma Goldman’s years living in Toronto called Emma Goldman: The Anarchist Guest, by Colman Romalis. Marie is featured in the film. She remarks, “At 96 years old, I took the subway all the way there. I walked up to the building met many people, went to watch the film to only fall asleep – can’t remember a word of it but I understand it’s a decent film.” She participated in the recent local municipal elections in Toronto and was more than pleased to see a change at City Hall.

Cat Lover

Marie lives in East York with her cat, attends the seniors program at the local community centre and was featured in the East York local paper, The Mirror, as a fond Meals On Wheels recipient.

Like so many other feminists with the love of cat’s: “I always loved cats because they’re very smooth, you know there is nothing rough about them…a cat is self sufficient, she takes care of herself… I always loved cats. I’ve never been without a cat, never. They know how to pick out people and they are very intelligent”.