Julie Macfie Sobol
In Memoriam

Julie Macfie Sobol (December 27, 1936 – March 15, 2022)

On March 15th Julie Macfie Sobol died peacefully in her sleep in Toronto at the age of 85. She had spent the previous day wishing Happy Birthday to her daughter Corry and speaking over the phone with several of her oldest friends. She was also in regular contact with her brother Thomas Macfie, as well as her two other children, John and Jane, her grandchildren Julian, Elliot, Louis, Sophie, Ximena and Lara, and her son-in-law Greg Clarke and daughter-in-law Annie Hillis, all of whom she loved unreservedly. She was loved deeply by all in return.

Julie was married for 49 years to Ken Sobol, who died in 2010. Julie was also predeceased by her sister Elizabeth (Betsy) Macfie in 2013.

Julia Rosamond Macfie was born and raised in Garden City, Michigan, outside of Detroit, on land that her maternal great-grandfather John Lathers had cleared following his emigration from Ireland. As a child the Macfie house was filled with music and poetry, much enjoyed by both her father John, a mechanic at the Ford plant, and her mother Lillian, a teacher.

A high school valedictorian, Julie received a prestigious Ford scholarship to any university in the country. She chose to attend Oberlin College, where she met Ken, whom she would marry in 1960, a year after their graduation. They moved to New York City where Julie worked as a secretary. After work she enjoyed seeing (and hearing!) the Clancy Brothers at the White Horse Tavern, among many other Greenwich Village delights. Subsequently she and Ken moved to London, England, before returning to New York aboard the Queen Mary while Julie was pregnant with John. Corry and Jane followed soon after as Julie and Ken moved their young family first to Los Angeles then to Montreal, then back to Brooklyn and eventually to Toronto in 1972. Julie would live the rest of her life in Canada and became a proud Canadian citizen.

Julie was a wonderful musician and a fine pianist. She had an expansive knowledge of 19th and 20th century popular music and could play almost any song upon request. In Los Angeles she had studied vocal accompaniment and performed art songs with classical vocalists, but she was as often heard playing Beatles or Boogie-Woogie as Schubert. She also sang in several excellent choirs, which she greatly enjoyed. In her later years she also enjoyed playing at senior’s residences.

In her late 30s Julie took up painting, first as a pastime and then as a passion. Over the course of her life she filled endless sketchbooks with rich drawings of people in action. It mattered little whether her subjects were playing baseball, playing music or simply walking down the street, she brought them all to life. Julie studied anatomical drawing as well as oil and watercolour painting before discovering Chinese brushpainting in her 70s. She worked diligently at this difficult and unforgiving medium to create scores of beautiful works that she infused with her own unique sensibility.

Julie also loved literature. In fact, she reportedly won Ken’s heart on their first date by enthusiastically demonstrating – to his amazement – that her ability to recite poetry from memory dwarfed his. As Ken became a busy and successful writer Julie would often edit his prose. This eventually led to their decision to write together. They researched and wrote over a dozen feature articles for Canadian Geographic magazine. They also collaborated on a TV series about holistic health practices and wrote two books together: Looking For Lake Erie (Penguin, 1996), and Lake Erie – A Pictorial History, (Boston Mills, 2004).

Following Ken’s diagnosis with Lewy Body Disease, an aggressive form of dementia, the writing team decided to document the experience of his illness. They did so until Ken could no longer write, at which point Julie continued to take notes. Eventually Julie set the project aside in order to provide her husband with much needed full-time care. After Ken’s death Julie would return to this project and with tremendous courage complete it. Her moving book, Love and Forgetting – a Husband and Wife’s Journey Through Dementia, which she felt was as much catharsis as memoir, was published in 2013 by Second Story Press.

Julie was a quiet but valued contributor to the many different communities she was a part of in her long and varied life, be it as editor of a PTA newsletter in New York, as an outspoken advocate for maintaining train service to the rural Ontario community where she and Ken lived for several years, or simply by always warmly welcoming her children’s many teenage friends into her home.

Julie was a thoughtful and open-minded person. Never sentimental, she was nonetheless deeply caring, with an inner strength belied by her gentle nature. Although she was not physically strong, she was fortunate to remain generally healthy until the end. She was exceptionally smart yet without any trace of arrogance, always bringing a down to earth approach to any situation. Without herself being especially practical, she nonetheless genuinely valued practicality and self-discipline, and worked hard to be a good homemaker even if she was never a lover of cooking and cleaning.

Julie had a wonderful influence on her children, and on her husband, who cherished her.  Corry was particularly helpful to her in her later years, but she was supported happily by her entire family, who will forever miss her kindheartedness, her creativity, and her generous soul.

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Donations may be made in Julie’s name to Covenant House or The Nature Conservancy.

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