AUGER, Simone - Our dear Simone passed away on November 10, 2020 in Toronto at the age of 86, following a series of small strokes and previously undiagnosed ovarian cancer.
A calamitous, sad end to a gentle life, though she was able to employ Canada’s progressive Medical Assistance in Dying Act, aided by two most humane physicians.
Simone was a native of Montreal, born in modest circumstances. The middle of three sisters, they lost their mother to cancer while still young children. The Catholic nuns proved to be some measure of replacement, and Simone loved the formal learning they provided. The first in her family to attend university, Simone received a classical education first at the University of Montreal and subsequently at the Sorbonne in Paris; she received degrees from both. Returning reluctantly to Canada from France, she was promptly hired as an arts journalist at Montreal's La Presse newspaper, simply because an editor said he liked the sound of her voice on the telephone. She always chuckled at this lax hiring process, though she did have a lovely speaking voice.
Simone soon became a respected movie critic and arts journalist in Montreal. Then following her marriage to an American poet and teacher name Richard Uhlich, she moved to New York City and became a radio and TV producer for Radio Canada/CBC, covering the arts and ideas for most of the 1960s. She interviewed and profiled such figures as Anais Nin, Edgard Varèse, and Salvador Dali, while keeping up her weekly arts column for La Presse, and later writing and taping a weekly NY arts diary radio column for Radio Canada.
She returned to Canada in the 1970s as a single woman, and began working as an editor for various governmental agencies in Ottawa (National Gallery, InfoCan) before joining the Dept. of External Affairs in research and writing. In time she became a manager, and eventually pushed enough papers to culminate in a diplomatic appointment, as Canadian Consul for Public Affairs in Los Angeles. That was a blessed time for Simone: she loved the landscape of California and the state's magical sense of freedom, especially after the tedium of Ottawa.
Near the start of those four wonderful California years, she commenced a love affair that lasted until the other day, with American music educator and classical music critic Peter Kristian Mose. He followed her first to California, then back to Canada, where they settled in unfamiliar Toronto to start life anew.
After a miserable year at TVOntario (Manager of Corporate Promotion), Simone lucked into her final, longest-lasting and maybe best job, as executive director of the Canadian Music Centre, a service organization for Canadian composers. She was hired for her diplomacy skills. She was also president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts during this time.
In retirement she was active as an arts translator, returning to her French writerly roots.
Simone was a quiet, curious, poetic, and cultivated soul. And so kind. Mourning her deeply now are her nephew Daniel Jean and his husband Sylvain Christin of Saint-Irénée, Quebec, and her longtime companion Peter.
Arrangements with Rosar-Morrison funeral home, Toronto.
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