Educator, historian.
Born at Winnipeg on 14 November 1921, daughter of Alexander Abraham Shanas (c1894-1982) and Sarah Wachnow (c1897-1964), she attended the I. L. Peretz Folk School and St. John's High School. After receiving a BA (Honours) from the University of Manitoba and an MA (English) from the University of Toronto, he returned to Winnipeg and edited a community newspaper before taking a job teaching veterans of the Second World War at the University of Manitoba. Around 1946, she married Harry Gutkin and they had three children. She returned to teaching after her children were grown. In collaboration with her husband, she wrote several books including Journey Into Our Heritage: The Story of the Jewish People in the Canadian West (1980), The Worst of Times, The Best of Times: Growing Up in Winnipeg's North End (1987), and Profiles in Dissent: The Shaping of Radical Thought in the Canadian West (1996). She died at Peterborough, Ontario on 11 April 2021.
Her publications for the Manitoba Historical Society:
“Give us our due!” How Manitoba Women Won the Vote
Manitoba History, Number 32, Autumn 1996
Obituary [Sarah Shanas], Winnipeg Tribune, 23 November 1964, page 48.
Obituary [Alexander Abraham Shanas], Winnipeg Free Press, 15 October 1982, page 53.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 15 April 2021.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 15 April 2021
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