Gail Anderson

Gail Anderson March 24, 1939, to August 27, 2017. Gail was born in Souris, Manitoba in 1939. Her early years were spent in a number of small prairie towns, first when her father was transferred from town to town with the Royal Bank and then, after her father died and her mother remarried, her stepfather was moved around as the manager of a retail lumber company. The marriage also provided a sister, Barbara, and as two only-children they welcomed each other. Barbara became Gail's lifelong friend and was always there for her. The early experience of moving from town to town was good preparation for the challenges of life.

Gail studied art at the University of Manitoba before graduating in Fine Art in 1961. It was a wonderful education and provided her with a lifelong interest in the arts. Then, after her experience of working two summers at the Banff Springs Hotel, she decided to make her home in Calgary. She was attracted by the youthful energy of the city and by the proximity of mountains where she loved to camp, hike and ski.

On arriving in Calgary, she landed a job at the Calgary Public Library. After working at the Library for 8 years, she went on to obtain a Master of Librarianship from the University of Washington in 1971. For the next five years, she worked in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary, both teaching and working in the education library. Then, in 1976, an opportunity arrived which brought her background and qualifications together and she became the manager of the Fine Arts Department at the Calgary Public Library; a position she held for the next 24 years. Gail guided the development of first-rate collections in art, architecture, music, as well as the film and later video collections, which at the time were two of the best collections of materials on these subjects and formats in a public library in Canada.

Gail volunteered with several arts related organizations throughout her life. In 1990, she became President of the Calgary Region Arts Foundation, the City of Calgary's arts granting organization. Following her term there, she became president of the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation. After her retirement from that position she was asked to lead a committee to develop a public art policy for the city of Calgary. After eight years of behind the scenes work with city staff, members of Council, and the executive of the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation, a public art policy for the city of Calgary was adopted in 2004. It required a 1% contribution to public art on all infrastructure projects. Gail considered this to be her most important legacy. From 2004 to 2007, she was the Chair of the Public Art Board, and Past chair for the three following years during the implementation of the policy.

Gail was a traveler throughout her life. Soon after graduating from university, she was eager to see all the masterpieces of art she had studied, and saved money to backpack around Europe as was the fashion of the times. In Calgary, she met her husband and they set forth in the summer of 1962 to spend a year traveling around Europe following the advice in "Europe on Five Dollars a Day", the bible of all young people traveling in Europe at that time. The trip was such a success that they decided to work for 2 years then returned to Europe and extended their travels to the Middle East. Traveling by car, they crossed the Middle East as far as Iran and the Caspian Sea. In a subsequent year, they traveled across the Sahara as far south as the desert oasis of Timimoun.

After her marriage ended, Gail continued to travel with friends, and took two extensive trips to Mexico with her friend Patty Benjamin. The first, in 2000, was an exploration by bus of eight of the colonial cities and the second, some ten years later, was an in-depth exploration of Mayan sights and colonial cities of Yucatan, again by bus; two seniors with backpacks. In later years with her great friend John Bonnycastle, she safaried to Africa six times, including two trips to India and another to Sri Lanka.

In later years, Gail used her creative skills to document her travels first through computer made books and then by videos which she posted to YouTube.

In 2015, her house was designated a heritage property because, although only 40 years old, it is a rare and outstanding example of the West Coast Modern style in Calgary.

Gail died peacefully on August 27, 2017. A celebration of Gail's life will be held at the Southern Alberta Pioneers Memorial Building on September 26 from 4-7 pm. Guests are asked to RSVP to gailandersonmemorial@gmail.com