Marion Gallis signs her Endowment Book of Life story

The Gallis family – originally Galsky – arrived in Winnipeg in 1921. Family members included parents Philip (Pesach) and Bertha, and their five children: Sophie (Romalis), Oscar, Ruth (Finkle), Rita (Sarbit) and the youngest, Max, then six years old. Their trip, from Novgorod, Volinsk, near Odessa in the Ukraine brought them to New Brunswick, and then to Winnipeg.

Soon after arriving in Winnipeg, Philip and his wife Bertha, having taken the name Gallis, opened a grocery store, P. Gallis and Sons, on Mountain and Mackenzie.

Bertha passed away in 1939.

Max, the youngest, would take a major role in running the store. In 1940, having completed a senior matriculation at St John’s Technical-Vocational High School, he married Marion Mindell, the youngest daughter of Harry and Sarah Mindell. In 1943 their eldest daughter, Brenda Barrie Gallis was born.

At the time of Brenda’s birth Max was serving overseas with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Eventually he would serve in England, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany. When the war ended in Europe in 1945, Max was retained in the service to work as an interpreter until 1946. In 1947 Max and Marion moved from the Renfrew Apartments to a new home on Lansdowne Avenue, near Mackenzie, where, in 1951, they welcomed a second child, Sydney Ruvin Gallis, z/l.

The Gallis family lived on Lansdowne Avenue until 1961. From 1949, following the death of his wife Sarah, until his death in 1961, Harry Mindell, Marion’s father, lived with them.

In 1957 the Gallis’ grocery store was sold and Max began a thirteen-year career with Canada Life as an Insurance Representative.

In196l Marion and Max bought a home on Forest Park Drive, then a brand new section of Garden City. During the years on Lansdowne, Marion had been extremely active in the Muter Farein of the I.L. Peretz School. For some years she ran a restaurant on Selkirk Avenue. In 1961 she returned to the firm that had employed her from age seventeen, the Sidney I. Robinson Fur Company. She retired in 1978.

L to R Lee Doerksen, Renata Doerksen, Simon Doerksen, Brenda Barrie and Sid Bursten

After retiring from Canada Life, Max returned to work as a grocery produce manager, eventually retiring from that too. In all he retired three times, the last time only months before his death in Palm Springs, California in January, 1993 at the age of 78.

Brenda Gallis graduated from the I.L. Peretz Folk School on Aberdeen, Machray School and St. Johns High. After her marriage to Sidney Bursten in 1963, she attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She completed her BA. at the University of Winnipeg when she and her husband returned to Winnipeg in 1976 to manage The Jewish Post. Later they published the Downtowner Newspaper. Subsequently, Sidney Bursten developed a career as a computer software designer. Brenda became the marketing director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and later was the director of the Jewish Community Relations Department of the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council. After returning to the U.S. she was the Executive Director of the JCRC-ADL of Minnesota and Dakotas and worked for Hadassah and American Jewish Committee in California. She earned an MA in Creative Writing at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Marion’s great-grandchildren Benjamin, Simon and Maks Doerksen

In between these major projects I hosted dozens of fundraising events and award shows – another one of my callings – helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthy causes. In 2007 I became involved in union politics and became the vice-president of ACTRA Toronto, representing 13,000 performers. In 2002 my life changed when my son Eli was born.

His mother, Diane Flacks, is a writer/performer, and his mother, Janis Purdy, is a social worker. Eli is talented, funny and creative, and has inherited a love of performing. He is my greatest production ever and through him I have discovered another one of my callings – being a father!