We regret to announce the death on February 1st 2010 of Catherine (Kati) Rekai C.M., writer and advisory board member of the Canada-Hungary Educational Foundation. Kati had been a friend and supporter of the work of our Foundation as of many Canadian literary and publishing projects. She is well-known in the Canadian writing world for her series of children’s travel books with animal characters: The Adventures of Mickey, Taggy, Puppo and Cica and how they discover …Toronto, Budapest, Vienna or the Thousand Islands – and other places. She started writing these books for her first grandchild Christopher. You can read about her on our webpage.
The Globe and Mail obituary of February 6th 2010 says the following about her:
Born in Budapest, Hungary and passed away peacefully at her Toronto home after a life lived to the fullest. Predeceased by her loving husband Dr. John Rekai C.M. Much loved mother of Julie (Donald Rickerd) and Judyth (Robert Nuttall). Adored grandmother of Christopher Rickerd and Sean, James, Megan, and Teddy Nuttall and minder of her faithful feline companion, Cica. As a writer, broadcaster and journalist, she was a steadfast promoter of Canadian writers and publishers abroad, a champion of child literacy, world travel and involved in countless cultural, bilingual and multicultural activities. She will be greatly missed, especially by the children whose lives she touched with the many books she wrote for them. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in her memory to an animal or child education charity.
Read a full obituary article on Kati published by the Globe and Mail on March 2nd, 2010, entitled “Toronto’s First Lady of Multiculturalism”.
Further information on Kati can be found on the Writers’ Union of Canada site: http://www.writersunion.ca
Kati’s late husband, Dr John Rekai, established with his brother, Dr Paul Rekai, Toronto’s first “multicultural” hospital (before the term was used in Canada), Central Hospital in 1958. Kati is interviewed about this in a documentary prepared by William Kosaras of the Toronto Hungarian TV program “Magyar Képek.” Excerpts from the film can be found here: http://kmtv.ca/rekai.php. OMNI TV broadcast the documentary on January 16th 2010. ( http://www.omnitv.ca/ontario/tv/signatureseries )