Anita Bundy, who passed away on Oct. 23 at the age of 93, was a “natural revolutionary,” says the Rev. Clarke Raymond.
Raymond was the longtime executive director of program at the national offices of the Anglican Church of Canada in Toronto, and Bundy worked as his executive assistant during her 30-year career with the church. “She taught me a lot-about confidentiality, the importance of letting people know, keeping people in the loop,” Raymond says, praising her work and contributions to the General Board of Religious Education and the program departments.
But Raymond added that one of Bundy’s most important contributions was her support for women working in Church House. “She was a natural revolutionary, particularly in regard to all things feminist,” he said.
After she retired, Bundy moved to Victoria, B.C in 1991 and became very involved with the local chapter of the Raging Grannies. In their 2004 book Off Our Rockers, Alison Acker and Betty Brightwell fondly describe Bundy as “our most elegant Granny, still with jet-black hair that she adorned with a sparkly hair band.”
The authors noted that Bundy grew up in a conservative Anglican family, but was first exposed to liberal, even radical thinkers, at the University of Manitoba. It was at the Anglican church where she “learned how to protest, when to protest and who to protest to. She raged against multinational corporations, apartheid, pollution, the banks and the government.”
Acker and Brightwell describe Bundy as a relentless and creative campaigner:
“Am I going to get a record?” she quavered in her best little-old-lady tone.
“Not with your voice,” quipped the smarty-pants sergeant. Anita loved it.
Bundy was predeceased by her husband Reginald, and she is survived by her daughter Judith Murray.
