Open this photo in gallery:
Elizabeth Tory and John A. Tory outside Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Emergency Department. The couple provided funding for the Tory Trauma Program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Canada’s first and largest trauma centre.Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre/Supplied
Elizabeth Tory, an intrepid volunteer with formidable powers of persuasion, tapped a vast network in support of various causes. She recruited surgeons and captains of industry to canvass for hospital fundraisers and once enlisted her hairstylist’s help to buttonhole an elusive donor as he settled into his chair for a trim.
Liz, as she was known by most, was legendary in Canadian charity and business circles for her drive, accomplishments and rapier wit. In the course of a life dedicated to community service, Ms. Tory played a strategic role on the boards of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among others, while also spearheading multimillion-dollar campaigns for donations. It was unpaid, enormously valuable work. At the grassroots level, for years she went door-to-door in the same Toronto neighbourhood collecting money for cancer research. Her daughter, Jennifer, tagged along when she was a child.
Ms. Tory died at her Toronto condo, in the company of her four children, on Oct. 3. At 94, she had succumbed to age-related ailments. The woman with six holes-in-one to her credit finally gave up golf two years ago and was active until the end as a member of the art gallery’s nominating committee vetting candidates for board service.
Her husband, John A. Tory, a trusted behind-the-scenes adviser in the Thomson and Rogers business empires, died suddenly of a hemorrhagic stroke in 2011. As a team, they were regarded as one of Canada’s most influential power couples, say those who knew them both.
Liz Bacon was a vibrant, outgoing nursing student when her sister Anna, a law school classmate of John’s, introduced them. He was as reserved as she was ebullient, their daughter Jennifer Tory says.
“My dad was very shy, notwithstanding he was a very successful businessman and had to be out there with all different types of people. Without her, he might have been a real hermit and stayed home at lot more. … I think that’s part of the reason he adored her.”
Open this photo in gallery:
Elizabeth Tory, right, with the prestigious Sunnybrook Rose Award, which she won in 2008, presented by Virginia McLaughlin, who was the chair of the Sunnybrook board at that time.Doug Nicholson/Sunnybrook Hospital/Supplied
A voracious reader, Ms. Tory held her own at business events and was a maestro at working a room.
The late Peter C. Newman, author of The Canadian Establishment book series, made this observation: “Liz Tory, whose husband masterminds the exponential growth of the Thomson empire, is probably the most sought-after social animator, partly because she is so well-organized (serving on a dozen committees as well as running her own company, Tudor Travel) but mainly because she has an instinct for how group effort can be meshed into meaningful results.” She later sold the travel business to American Express, her daughter said.
Open this photo in gallery:
Ontario PC Leader John Tory is consoled by his mother Liz Tory as he arrives to deliver his concession speech in Toronto on Oct. 10, 2007.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
While the volunteer hours she put in were equivalent to a full-time job, none of this came at the expense of family, says her eldest son, former Toronto mayor John H. Tory. In addition to being a strong, supportive wife, she was a fiercely proud mother to her children, John, Jennifer, Jeffrey and Michael. She relished her role as grandmother and great-grandmother although she was not the sort of person one would describe as “cuddly,” her son John said at the funeral, drawing laughs from many in the church who had been at the receiving end of her zingers.
The Tory family’s community impact is perhaps most deeply evident at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, where in addition to Liz’s – and now Jennifer’s – board service, the Torys have been major benefactors for more than five decades. Two weeks after the Tory family matriarch died, Sunnybrook celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Tory Trauma Program, which is the largest of its kind in Canada, chief executive officer Andy Smith said in an interview. It provides care for medical emergencies ranging from heart attacks and brain hemorrhages to accidents, burns and mass casualties.
As he spoke, the trauma team was on standby to receive patients from Alberta if needed following the devastating Wainwright military base fire that claimed four lives and injured dozens of others.
John A. Tory and Liz Tory, early in their marriage, consulted Sunnybrook doctors and executives on their most pressing needs and decided on a substantial donation to support trauma treatment. Jennifer Tory, a retired bank executive, has built on that philanthropy and followed in her mother’s footsteps as a member of the Sunnybrook Foundation board. Liz served on the hospital board for 14 years and subsequently sat on the foundation board.
Open this photo in gallery:
Toronto Mayor John Tory accompanies his mother Elizabeth Tory to vote at an advanced polling election station in Toronto on Oct. 10, 2018.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
“Liz transcended to the highest levels of foundation leadership, where it was about much more than money. It was about the spirit that she brought and imparted,” Dr. Smith says. She had a way of inspiring others and bringing them on board.
Elizabeth Emma Bacon was born in Toronto on Jan. 15, 1932. She was the second of four children born to Howard Bacon, who owned a trucking business, and Helen Bacon (née Solomon). She attended Jarvis Collegiate in downtown Toronto, where she was an excellent athlete and sang in musical productions.
“Liz Tory came from modest beginnings to lead an extraordinary life of family and community contribution,” her children wrote in the death notice.
She was a student at the Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing when she met John A. Tory and did not resume her nursing studies after marrying him and having their first child at the age of 21. She was of a generation where women were not widely expected to work outside the home while raising families but volunteer work was encouraged.
The bold confidence she inherited from her mother served her in good stead when her mother-in-law, Jean Tory, introduced her to the worlds of wealth and charity. “She didn’t know she was releasing a tiger,” Liz Tory later told Globe and Mail society columnist Rosemary Sexton.
Her first volunteer job with Jean was with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, where Liz Tory stayed on as a volunteer for more than 70 years. She was always in high demand from other not-for-profit organizations and charities wanting to boost their impact.
Open this photo in gallery:
Alexander Younger, Dalton McGuinty, Sarah Richardson, Liz Tory.JENNA MARIE WAKANI/The Globe and Mail
Her children John and Jennifer say their mother was fearless and unabashedly direct in enlisting others to donate money or time. She was sharp, funny and made people laugh, although at times it was a somewhat nervous laugh.
They both recall a memorable exchange at a meeting of the Art Gallery of Ontario board, where a list of potential board nominees was being considered. The other board members seemed satisfied with the list, then Liz said, “I think my copy has a page missing.” When asked what she meant, she responded, “Well, I don’t know, the page that has the women’s names on it.” They had presented a slate entirely of men.
The zingers did not come quite as frequently toward the end of her life, although Liz firmly asserted her independence when her children took her on an exploratory tour of a retirement home. When informed of the menu and dining schedules, Liz quipped that that it was kind of like prison where you were told what time you were going to eat and who you were going to eat with, her son John recounted in an interview.
The “nice young woman” leading the tour gamely carried on the movie room where Liz asked, “Do you have porn night?” It was a joke, “and she would say it in a way that couldn’t be other than funny,” he added. “But it was a serious message for us that … she was going to live at home if she possibly could and we abided by her wishes.”
The condolences offered to the family after her death were fond and effusive. Ms. Tory had a remarkable ability to remember people’s names and the names of their children. When she volunteered at Sunnybrook, she would invite doctors home to dinner. CEOs, caregivers, hairstylists, the condo concierge and her golf caddy were among the friends who paid tribute. When the former mayor of Toronto goes to shops in his mother’s neighbourhood, he said, he is best known as Liz Tory’s son.
You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.