Written by Kathie Vanular, relative of Sonia and member of IMA Global

By 1970 when Sonia Vanular was inspired to connect secretaries with a professional association for the International Management Association (IMA), she was a mature woman in her Fifties. I requested from her family in France when she had passed if I might receive any paper records from this association work. A yellow folder arrived this spring.

On the folder cover Sonia wrote Sub-Committee on Revisions of EAPS Statutes 1970 -1980. It held letters between sub-committee members and within each letter the arguments and reasons for statute revisions. The letters will be digitized for archival record, very detailed in their nature.

I appreciate letters more as time passes for their historical record. I became a volunteer with a group initiating the L.M. Montgomery Museum and Literary Centre in Norval, Ontario. From 1926 to 1935 the village was the home to Canadian author L.M. Montgomery (Maud), author of Anne of Green Gables. I was working on Museum Studies Certificate with the Ontario Museum Association in my early Fifties when I came to this project. At the University of Guelph library archives, I saw the hand-penned letters by the author. When I saw the letters written by the early IMA founders (EAPS sub-committee), I experienced that same kind of feeling when living in history. Letters can hold how we construct our ideas and then work with others to explain our positions.

What had seeded the Seventies period for Sonia? This is my interpretation founded on a belief that three environmental experiences are the source that made a lifelong dedicated effort.

When you were with Sonia, you felt her desire to make the time about you, and not about herself. That’s why it is sometimes difficult to remember what she said about herself. She championed the secretarial field into a professional career with management recognition and cared about the association like an extended family. The words she spoke or wrote made you feel she believed in you (whatever it was) and was willing to help if you were inclined to let her. In one conversation I had with Sonia she credited Dale Carnegie training for her philosophy about talking with people in positive ways.

In the 1970 – 1980 period computers did not assist meetings. Dogged determination and a clear vision, along with a rotary dial phone and letters, was how she reached her subcommittee in Europe. Her story about the association’s history is written in ONCE UPON A TIME …. The story of how it all began. It’s at the front of the yellow folder  and you can read it elsewhere on these history pages of IMA.

When I consider the source to why a service to others might exist in her way of being, it might be her war experience, and marriage. It took a coordinated effort to execute plans in war, and recognition was essential in all parts of motivating people. It brought a profound change to her life.

During WWII Sonia met Ricky (John Henry Vanular). He was a Flight Officer with the 190 Squadron in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and stationed in Britain. A black and white photo of him in uniform is from Shrewsbury, close to the RAF Shawbury base. Ricky was a gold metal graduate of the University of Manitoba and had achieved multiple recognitions in his actuary profession. Ricky was overseas in 1943 at the age of 27. They must have easily connected.

On the 11th of May in 1945 Ricky died in Holland. It was only 8 months since they married and six days after the liberation of Holland. He is buried in Eindhoven (Woensal) General Cemetery in the Netherlands. A memorial monument is in the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery in Winnipeg where he was from. Ricky on his mother’s side was from Jewish heritage.

Sonia was a widow, at the age of 23. Afterwards, she came to Canada every other year to visit her late husband’s family. When visiting us in her later years, Sonia wanted to see only one family at a time, for the one-on-one time to know us better. In 1988 her nephew, Henry Trachtenberg - a historian in Manitoba, worked with Sonia to dedicate a lake in Manitoba to Ricky, Vanular Lake. She visited the lake after its dedication.

There were two other reasons and possible sources from Sonia’s environment that I believe led to her forming the association.

When Sonia was secretary to the Wandsworth School manager in southwest London, she said that she was given great responsibilities because her manager was not in good health. It built confidence and led her into a career in training.

Also, Sonia studied to be a lawyer and passed the bar but did not decide to practice law. She used her legal ability however through the creation of the association in the Seventies. Becoming a lawyer caused a shift in how others gave her status. She wanted the secretarial field she worked in to be a professional career with recognition, and not an entry job to employment. She felt if she could provide woman with an association that could give them training and conferences, these early-stage administrative assistants could share in their collaborations between countries.

In 1970 and at the same time the Women’s Liberation movement was in process, there was declining enrollment in secretarial courses. Sonia saw the benefit to a business bottom line through a professional and well-trained office assistant. She was attending women led conferences and in 1966 had attended the World Women’s Lawyers’ Eleventh Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. Sonia went to annual dinners for lawyers at Whitehall until her Eighties

Sonia wanted to move woman then to the center, where they could have a fulfilling career with status. The association grew to include men as administrative and management assistants, as more careers became open to everyone. She stayed with the association up until her mid-Nineties, laughing a distinctive laugh in approval and joy for the group. Her written and spoken words encouraged us always and criticized rarely. She depended on us to work on solutions, not on problem.

Katherine (Kathie) Vanular

Administrative Assistant, Vantj