ANJA TALVILA
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Anja Talvila on Saturday, August 13, 2016 in Toronto at the age of 82. She died peacefully in the Etobicoke home where she had lived for 48 years and raised her family of four.
She is predeceased by her husband Ilmari. Much-loved mother of Anneli, Kaarina, Erik, and Tuula (Leland); and grandmother to Kristen, Katherine, Nikolas, Aila, and Iain.
Anja was born in Finland in 1934 and arrived in Canada in 1951, not speaking a word of English but determined to make a good life for herself in her adopted country.
She married Ilmari in 1953. He loved her deeply throughout their 56-year marriage and came to depend on her optimism and cheerful spirit, and her practical and capable nature.
Anja valued her family above all else and provided a loving home in which her four children flourished. She set high standards but bestowed on her children a wealth of practical knowledge and always supported them in their endeavours.
She excelled at homemaking, going far beyond the usual cooking and cleaning to knit and sew her children’s clothes, cut their hair, paint the house, carry out home maintenance, tend a magnificent garden and much more besides.
She was an extraordinarily accomplished knitter, winning awards, working for Patons Yarns for many years and teaching knitting classes for twenty years. She enjoyed the operetta and ballet, was an avid reader, both in English and Finnish, and was a long-time member of the Finnish reading circle.
Anja was a highly creative, diligent, honest, unpretentious person who will be truly missed by all who knew her, her children especially.
Visitation at the Turner & Porter Butler Chapel, 4933 Dundas St. W., Etobicoke, (between Islington and Kipling Aves.) on Sunday, August 21, 2016 from 5 to 7 p.m. Funeral Service in the Butler Chapel on Monday, August 22, 2016, at 1 p.m. Anja would have appreciated donations in her name to the Islington Seniors’ Centre, a community that made her feel welcome and became very important to her in recent years. Online condolences may be made at www.turnerporter.ca –