Mary Valentich at 84: A lifetime of letters and social change in Calgary

Mary Valentich was five years old when she realized the world would listen to her ideas.

Growing up in the small Ontario village of Cooksville, she lived in her mother's boarding house, surrounded by adults who treated her like an equal. Her father brought her to Croatian community meetings where politics flowed freely. "I got a lot of attention," she recalls with a laugh. "I found it all so fascinating, and I suffered no penalty, no matter how outrageous my comments."

Nearly eight decades later, that childhood curiosity has never dimmed. At 84, Valentich continues to shape Calgary—teaching, writing, advocating on climate change, assisted dying, civic causes and a host of social justice issues. She's done it through a tool most would overlook: the letter to the editor.

Over six decades, Valentich has sent more than 250 letters to newspapers, many to the Calgary Herald. Those letters have influenced city decisions—including the switch from calling ward representatives "aldermen" to "councillors" at City Hall. Now, a new book called "Letters to the World" collects her correspondence, tracing how public opinion shifts across decades on topics from food banks and beauty pageants to smoking, gambling, urban development and sexism.

"I realized years ago letter writing was a form of advocacy," Valentich writes in the book's introduction. Each missive alerted the public to "problematic social or other conditions that impeded the well-being of individuals, couples, families, communities and organizations."

In her classroom at the University of Calgary's faculty of social work—where she taught for more than two decades—Valentich made letter writing a requirement. Students had to send their thoughts to editors. "Social media did not exist in my teaching days, but Letters to the Editor did and still do," she writes. "They remain our time-honoured social media."

Her career has been defined by fearless advocacy. As an academic, social worker, feminist, author, human rights activist and pioneering sex educator, Valentich has never shied from unpopular positions. She's testified on assisted dying. She's written passionately about climate change. She's pushed the boundaries of what was discussable.

Yet she speaks about her work without fanfare. "I feel so fortunate to have had a productive career and to have worked with so many dedicated folks on issues of importance to our individual and societal well-being," she says. "I'm very pleased to be doing this at 84 and why not? If you have the good fortune to discover something that you really care about, go for it."

Her immigrant parents, who were working poor, "never stopped aiming for a better life, and they instilled that in me as well." She had ice cream and Orange Crush in the summers, tennis and swimming in Lake Ontario. But she also had permission to think, to question, to speak.

That foundation—love, curiosity, permission to care deeply about the world—is what "Letters to the World" captures. It's not a collection of triumph, though there are victories scattered through it. It's a record of what one person, armed with pen and conviction, can do when she decides that her voice matters and that silence is not an option.