Rebecca Bragg.
Reporter. Fighter. Early AIDS activist. Novelist. Born Oct. 10, 1950, in Brantford, Ont.; died Dec. 16, 2016, in Grand Bend, Ont., of a pulmonary embolism; aged 66.
Rebecca's early life was difficult, and although kind and generous, she could also be difficult herself. It was said she burned a lot of bridges.
At 15, she was on her own. She found work as a recreation assistant at Bloorview Children's Hospital (now known as Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital). At 19, she became legal guardian of her younger sister, Cathy, and the teenage sisters rented a furnished apartment. Those early years created an intense bond, unbroken even after Cathy died of cancer in 2014. Rebecca was outraged that the oncologist's casually optimistic prognosis had misled Cathy to consent to what became a needlessly painful, prolonged and premature death by chemotherapy.
Rebecca reacted by twice confronting Ontario's College of Physicians and Surgeons and their lawyers in 2015 and 2016. In two appearances, she presented 30 pages of meticulous documentation, but her complaint was dismissed by the College, as was her appeal. The fierce energy of her response reflected her previous work, which included reporting on Canada's "tainted blood" tragedy, Toronto's homeless and her later work with mistreated animals. Before her own death, she said she believed the ordeal of Cathy's death had left her with PTSD.
In her youth, she had self-funded a BA at the University of Toronto and an MA at the University of Windsor, mentored by novelist Joyce Carol Oates. In the early 1980s, after she won a pay-equity lawsuit against Simpsons Toronto for women copywriters, June Callwood recruited her to fundraise for the creation of Casey House, the Toronto AIDS hospice. No AIDS hospice yet existed in Canada, likely because it was called a "plague" and those infected were feared pariahs. Yet Becky's committee raised $500,000, making it possible to buy an old building on Huntley Street. But a tenant was required, so she lived there alone before and during renovations, accompanied only by the guard dog Chelsea, until Casey House opened in 1988.
She had been freelancing for the Toronto Star, then was hired as fashion-correspondent, filing reports from the runways of Europe. By this time, she had developed an acute sense of style, especially in relation to fabrics. In 1988, she was made the Star's travel correspondent and made her first visit to Uzbekistan. From 1993 to 1998, she reported general news, including Canada's "tainted blood" tragedy and the Krever Commission. She tracked down 14 victims and travelled from Vancouver to Halifax to interview them and their families for a series called Blood Lines.
After two years in the City Hall bureau, she retired to Uzbekistan to research and write a novel on the Bolshevik takeover of Central Asia in the 1920s. She also lived for five years in Darjeeling, India, working on the book and volunteering at the Darjeeling Animal Shelter. In 2005, she returned to Grand Bend when sister Cathy was diagnosed with the cancer that would kill her in 2014.
In November, 2016, Rebecca announced her book, a historical novel, was finished. A month later, she collapsed on a snowy sidewalk in Grand Bend, felled by a blood clot. She was wearing what had become her winter trademark: a blue velvet, ankle-length, hooded opera coat. Her book is based on the work of the real-life female doctor who defended the women in the harem of the last Emir of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, from triumphant Russian soldiers. It awaits a publisher.
Rider Cooey is a friend of Rebecca's.
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