Sheila Finestone, profile with sketch by Lou Seligson, Canadian Jewish News

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Sheila Finestone, profile with sketch by Lou Seligson, Canadian Jewish News

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Sheila Finestone shatters tradition as head of FFQStory and Drawing By LOU SELIGSONMONTREAL —SELIGSONThe largest women's organization in Quebec, and in Canada, is the Federation des Femmes du Quebec with 130,000 members belonging to organizations within 30 associations in the province. Its president is Sheila Finestone.In a way Mrs. Finestone's election last year to this post shattered tradition, especially in a period when language and ethnic cultural differences are in the forefront of Quebec politics. She is the first anglophone — and Jewish — president ever elected to head the FFQ.So complete is her acceptance by this basically French Canadian membership that the only two contestants for the office at the annual congress last year dropped out to make her election a unanimous expression of the support of the 200 delegates.And to top it all off, Mrs. Finestone's French, though rapid and fluent now, is the product of Montreal's Protestant school system, English-accented and plainly adopted. "I was a bit uneasy at first," she admits. "I was self-conscious. But it was amazing how they accepted me, how they helped me and how natural it all became. They seemed delighted and I got only positive reinforcement."The secret of her participation in Montreal social and community activities (she is, or has been, the chairman, president or vice-president of many Jewish organizations) can be attributed to the encouragement of her father, Monroe Abbey. "I grew up participating," she says. "It was as natural as breathing. We were that kind of family."After Westmount High, she took a science BA at McGill, thinking that maybe she would enter medicine. But in 1947 she met Alan Finestone at McGill. "He was the big man on campus in my eyes," she recalls. "We graduated in May and got married in June." They have four sons: David, 27; Peter, 26; Maxwell, 23, and Steven, 18.Running a home and raising children never deflected her dynamism and she threw herself into community affairs. In 1950, she helped found the first nursery school at YM-YWHA, now the largest in Montreal. In 1952 she co-founded the Women's Activity Committee, and worked with the Golden Agers. Through the years, at some time or other, she was chairman of numerous Allied Jewish Community Services committees and in 1965 she was head of the women's division of the Combined Jewish Appeal."I've always been a groundbreaker in many ways," she says. "There's a little of the avant-gardist in me. I lead a fulltime working life as a volunteer. I don't think there is enough money to pay me for what I do."It was in 1964, when she headed Le Centre Communautaire Juif in establishing a community centre for new immigrants (most from North Africa), that she became sensitive to French problems. Now she is devoting most of her time to the FFQ effort to become a conscious, non-partisan political force that demands legislative action on minimum working laws for women — maternity leave, vacation pay, working hour limits and holidays.So Mrs. Finestone is breaking new ground at FFQ. She is pushing for full non-partisan political action. "Our membership crosses all boundaries — from the far right to the far left — so we are non-partisan," she says. The 14 vice-presidents form the elected governing board that carries out the annual congress resolutions and now they are busier than ever developing courses in leadership, in women in the political process, and holding seminars on management and social and the economic effect on women.Once a month she spends this sort of typical week: Monday, off to Toronto for the regular regional meeting, arranging financing for self-help projects and then meeting with the executive of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women; Tuesday, off to Quebec City to chair a dinner with government ministers Camille Laurin and Lise Payette; Wednesday, off to Ottawa to meet with health and welfare government heads to review financing of FFQ programs from grants and budgets; Thursday, off to regional FFQ council meetings in Trois-Rivieres, Chicoutimi and other small towns in the area.Friday she comes home and in between "umpteen meetings at AJCS," she joins the family for skiing at their country house at Mont Tremblant. "We're all avid skiers and we even teach it when we get the chance," she says.The key to her community and social activity, she explains, is in the total co-operation of her family. "My husband especially," she says. "Both of us have a history of community involvement. I don't know how women can do it without a husband's understanding."Read automatically; may contain mistakes.

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