from Peter Sinclair, Newfoundland, 20/10/2007

I spoke to Nora for the first time in the summer of 1972 on my arrival at the University of Guelph and for the last time a few days before her passing. It has been exceptionally difficult to find any words capable of coming close to appreciating her properly, and so I will just write what comes to mind at this moment. Nora was a close and loyal friend, spending time together more or less every day during my years at Guelph and later, on much more scattered days, when we would talk as if the last time had been yesterday. She was generous and kind to my family when often we visited her home and shared a meal, sometimes in the company of one or more of the many foreign students whom she helped adjust to life in Canada. Integrity is a key word. Nora remains a model of how to live with integrity, modest but strong, hard working and selfless, always looking out to and for others. At the same time, she exhibited sharp insight into the both the structuring of life on the large scale of international development and the conduct of those with whom she interacted. I remember her gentle caring for her mother. I remember her determination to do what was right. There is much to remember... I think others will remember as well, and her influence will move with them. As I said, there are no words good enough, but together we can tell the story of a first rate human being.

from Ken Westhues, Waterloo, 14/10/2007

On a spring day in 1970, Nora flew to Guelph from Penn State to interview for a faculty position. That same day, I flew here from New York for the same purpose. The sociology/anthropology department hired us both.

There was more freshness and promise here than anywhere Nora or I had ever been, even granting that we saw things through the rose-coloured glasses of new Ph.D.’s, new immigrants. Canada was still on the high of Montreal Expo. Its soldiers were not making war in Vietnam but keeping peace in trouble-spots around the globe. The University of Guelph was six years old, growing like Topsy. MacKinnon was not a big building on campus but a big man on campus, the Dean of Arts.

Our department seethed with restlessness, several professors having left the year before in a kerfuffle, a European ordinarius having been imported to whip into shape the remainder, along with a motley crew of recalcitrant junior and new faculty – not just Nora and me but Viennese Walter (who knew how to bow and kiss ladies’ hands), Prussian Rolf, sexologist Ed, Helen from Cairo, Montrealer Gerry, Roger the Christian demographer.

On Halloween of 1970, Nora and I and Walter and Rolf and Gerry and Barb, I forget who else, went trick-or-treating to the homes of the university president, the dean, the department chair – aiming to cultivate their sense of humour.

Six weeks later, about the same group of us were knocking on the doors of the homes of the same administrators, to sing them Christmas carols.

Nora was not just an able professor, a skilled sociologist, an effective teacher. She was a lot of fun – in an unpretentious, gentle, hospitable, democratic way.

Just after Anne and I got married, we moved for research in the summer of 1972 to Asuncion, Paraguay, traveling there and sharing a furnished house with Nora and her mother. Nora dragged Anne and me to all kinds of social occasions, repeating like a mantra, “Hay que cumplir…,” and giving us a priceless introduction to what was for us an exotic land.

On a visit to the Jesuit ruins in Misiones – the road was closed on account of rain, but Nora knew someone and we just drove around the roadblock (Nora was skilled at bypassing roadblocks of many kinds) – we stopped at the farm to which Nora’s parents had moved from Prague when she was about six years old, the farm where she grew up. I realized then how far Nora had traveled in her life, and not just in kilometers. I pictured her parents in that farmhouse, poor, isolated, deep in the continent’s interior, teaching their little girl their languages, and listening with her to the BBC on the radio, to add English to the list.

Nora was among the few professors in Canadian universities who never went to elementary or high school. She was a better professor, a better intellectual, for that. Her mind was only half full of academic generalities; the other half was filled with particular human lives.

A story Nora often told captures a value she held dear. It was of a mother at some social gathering in Paraguay telling her daughter, “Just sit and look pretty.” Nora found that advice chilling, abhorrent, disempowering, wasteful.

Nora was a beautiful woman, but she never ever just sat and looked pretty. She worked – to support herself, to buy her mother a piano and provide for her with dignity, but basically because in Nora’s view of things, work defines our humanness, work is our entry into history, work gives meaning to our lives.

With Nora’s death, Anne and I have lost a colleague, a friend, a big sister. So have many others. Peter Sinclair phoned me last week from Newfoundland to say he regrets he cannot be here today, but sends his respects. Nora’s life was a gift, her memory is a treasure.

from Valentin Petrov and Valentina Kravtsova, St.Petersburg, 10/10/2007

These days we would like to join you in order to express our feelings and great gratitude to our dear friend Nora Cebotarev. We met Nora in Mexico in 1994; our meetings had a continuation in Guelph where we spent about one year; a part of this period we lived in Nora's house by her kind invitation. This house was a center of young people from Latin America and other parts of the world, and Nora was so kind and helpful for everybody. She spoke many languages including Spanish, German, English, Portuguese, French, Russian, and she was brilliant company and excellent adviser. We were happy to receive Nora in St.Petersburg several years later. Her Russian was so perfect, and people considered her as a Russian. We had correspondence until the last year. Nora was a towering person. We will always keep grateful memory about Nora.

from Bill Friedland, Santa Cruz California, 10/9/2007

I regret receiving the news of Nora's passing and that I will be unable to attend the celebration of her life on the 14th next. Although my contact with Nora was brief and our intellectual/scholarly paths did not cross very much, I feel deeply indebted to her for her contribution to the emergence of the field of sociology of agriculture. The story is certainly obscure to most rural sociologists (let alone sociologists) but, as a participant in the process, I remember her contribution very clearly and and would like to call it to your attention.

In 1978, what was to become the "sociology of agriculture" began to crystallize at a one day meeting at UC Davis prior to the San Francisco meeting of the Rural Sociological Society. At that time, agriculture had pretty much become a forbidden topic in rural sociological circles. (That's a long story and I even wrote a paper [unpublished] about RSS and the disappearance of agricultural papers from RURAL SOCIOLOGY.) Shortly after the Davis meeting, when RSS scheduled its annual meeting in Guelph, several of us wanted to hold distinct panels on agricultural papers -- which had started to bubble up because of the then-recent crisis in agriculture -- but there seemed to be no interest in the Program Committee for setting such distinct sessions to deal with our papers. The one member of the Program Committee who actively encouraged us to proceed was Nora; in effect, she arranged for us to have several panels. These were organized on the quiet so that no one in RSS would be disturbed. What remains clearly in memory (since this was about 1980) was not only Nora's encouragement, but also the need to hop around various locations on the Guelph campus, unlike the format that later emerged as the sociology of agriculture became legitimated and accepted, i.e., meeting in one location.

Nora's encouragement was critical to the emergence of what has become the largest group of sessions at RSS meetings for over a decade.

from Annie Nino Osorio, Whitby, 10/9/2007

I'm Annie Nino, Maria Cristina Osorios daughter, from Manizales, Colombia. I live in Toronto now, the first time I came here I was 8. Norah saw me through all this years. I happily say I immigrated here because of her effort in the scholarship they granted to my mom. I count the last day of Norahs life with her in the hospital as the greatness gift ever, because I talked to her, thank her and made her feel how important she was for all of us, I knew her life will be among us forever. I can only feel greatness in my heart. I can only say thank you to the women that makes me say, if I’m looking for a title "what a women wants to mean = Norah Cebotarev". Because I feel that she is the result that the academic women of the 20th century is looking for, or should look forward to. I know I don't have a saying about all the research she did or the books she wrote, this is not my field. But I do understand the outstanding job she did to show me or us the importance of knowing who you are and be proud of it (Latinamerican, women, student, professional, friend, daughter).

from Mary Louise Cox,  M.Sc. Rural Extension, 10/6/2007

Nora was part of the team for the CIDA partnership project between the University of Guelph and the People's Friendship University, Moscow, Russia.  I was part of that team.  Nora and I shared a room in Moscow for 2 weeks, working on curriculum design and development with the PF university.  I considered Nora a friend and colleague and her advisorial, sage counsel over several years, I greatly respected.  Her outreach to many people of many cultures I greatly admired.  Her tenacity and vigour wrapped in a rapport of grace and charm that directed the fruition of many projects I will never forget.  I will remember her always, for Nora was a person one looked up to, she was the benchmark for all of us as we proceed in our outreach in rural development.

from Peter Graham, Somerset UK, 10/3/2007

I first met Nora in my undergraduate Rural Sociology course in 1975. What an impression her unassuming yet knowledgeable demeanour made upon me. After giving me one of my lowest marks in any course, and requiring that I shift my thinking from "centre" and "self" to  "others" and "the poor", Nora became my mentor both academically and personally. I found Nora living praxis, always considering and building on the impact of her work and life on the persons around her -- whether in a research project overseas, in a university forum, or in a personal interaction.

Nora had a fondness for working with women, and yet a heart and understanding for the dominant position of men. She tolerated behaviour which was unfair to her as a woman and to women in general -- but she never turned spiteful or vindictive, maintaining an equilibrium of perspective which was exemplary. Never personally threatening or aggressive, Nora's work and witness was a silent threat to established structures, beliefs and mores, particularly where asymmetrical power relations dominated the social landscape.

Nora was not overtly religious, but deeply respectful of all life.  She walked a path that was both dangerous in its import, yet secure in its foundation -- her belief that the essential goodness of humanity could be found in the lowest barrios or favelas as well as the most progressive civilisations, whenever the fundamental individual relations were addressed with humility, sincerity and compassion. Nora worked to improve the lot in life for those who could not, and for those who were often bypassed by progress and development through no fault of their own.

Thinking globally and acting locally, turning the other cheek, and loving one's neighbour seemed to be natural reflexes with Nora, always underlying her research and life. She lived in her way, what great leaders inspired in their way. The results of her professional work influenced thousands, perhaps millions indirectly. And for those who chose to know her personally, Nora influenced them deeply and profoundly, courageously and directly, one by one.

I was privileged to know and work with Nora, and thank God for the chance to know her over these past thirty years. Her influence will live on in me, my family and my work for generations to come.  May God rest her soul, and her memory continue to live on and inspire others for the years to follow.

from Alan Sáenz, Nicaragua, 9/26/2007

Un abrazo a la familia y amistades de Norita, en Nicaragua dejo muchos amigos y personas que la admiramos mucho como profesional y como persona. Nuestras mas sinceras condolencias de parte de la familia Sáenz Scott.

from Susan Turner, Guelph, 10/14/2007

Nora’s work was widely known for its focus on family and households as central to societal organization. She saw that a person’s work and experience in household relations connects them to relations outside the family/household – into the activities of communities, institutions, economies, professions, as well as into education, and theories and practices of social science, science and technology, and public discourses, among others. Her writing – and her extensive research programs – addressed this fundamental, overlooked, reality of the everyday way we live and experience the world in these relations. Nora also understood women and men as located differently in these relations, and thus as affected by, and able to affect them differently. She saw that how this worked was inequitably. It’s difficult to capture the breadth and extent of her scholarship and contributions, so I’m not trying to do that here. I’m trying rather to get at the heart of her work. These 4 excerpts are from a conference paper, a published article and early versions of work that was later published, one in English and one in Spanish.

The first excerpt is from “Households, Gender and Sustainability”, Towards Sustainable Rural Communities, The Guelph Seminar Series, 1994.

How then did I get into the field of families, and become interested in households: Well, this goes back a long time to when I was doing my Ph.D. What struck me was that we didn’t have a development theory, neither in sociology nor in anthropology, nor in economics, that would explicitly include the family and the household as active participating units. Theories only referred to families or households negatively, seeing them as “obstacles to change and modernization”, because of their presumed “traditional values.” Why was that? Why did theories not explicitly consider households? This was perhaps my first grasp of the gendered nature of our social theories. I asked myself: why is this so when we know how significant the families and households are in all our lives, although most often we take them for granted. …

The second excerpt is from “Human Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean”, presented to Canadian Association of Caribbean and Latin American Studies 1984 and published in 1989 by Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc.

[T]he “development” process, itself, as practiced in the “free world” – in Latin America and elsewhere – militates against the attainment of full “equal rights” by all. It does so by creating, and/or supporting, and further institutionalizing family structures inimical to the equality of women, particularly of poor rural peasant women. Furthermore, because of ideological constraints and a lack of theoretical explication of family structures and of their effects on the attainment of full human development by all its members, both human rights enforcement groups and “development” practitioners are blind to these facts. … Becoming sensitive to the many ways in which the “public sphere” – employment, economic conditions, policies, legislation, etc. – impinges and affects the internal workings of the family, should encourage us to examine our own work, be it in research, policy or “development” practice, and lead us to contribute more to some of the fundamental aims of “development.”

The third excerpt is from “Women in Agricultural Science and Technology: Implications for Today’s Food System”, published in a shorter version in Resources for Feminist Research 1986.

[T]he social positions of people in society tend to delimit their roles, shape their experiences and perspectives, and the nature of their participation in and contribution to socially significant activities. Gender and social class are indisputably among the most influential variables for placing individuals in society. As societies evolve and turn more complex, segregation of roles emerge, soon reflecting the class and gender of those who perform them. Science, technology and modern agriculture (as human activities) are not exceptions: they represent the views of their creators and neglect concerns of those excluded: the subsistence farmers, women, the landless and the poor. It is this disjunction of interests between those in science, modern food production and distribution, and those who are struggling to feed the majority in this world that aggravates today’s world’s food problems.

The last excerpt is from “Critical Science”, in an English version written 1999-2003 and then published in Spanish in Revista Latinoamericana de Niñez y Juventud 2003.

The main contributions of [critical science] are the legitimation of reflexivity and extension of dialectics (to various fields) as a knowledge producing categories; the joining of theory and practice (or political action) and to advocate inter-disciplinarity. CS also points to the need of contextualizing ones’ research, both in temporal and spatial terms; it legitimizes the use of multiple scientific methods; it includes subjectivity, by its concerns for human actors and their consciousness; it proposes that human action can transform social (power) structures and it lays bases for different human-nature relationships. CS highlights the need to transcend the naïve acceptance of appearances and to strive to uncover underlying forces. It also provided a method for transcending them. Perhaps the most important message of CS is that [its] practitioners and participants can consciously, in their everyday life, become part of constructive transformations towards a ‘better world.’

from Maria das Dores Saraiva de Loreto (Dorinha), Vicosa Brazil, 10/12/2007

FOR MY DEAREST FRIEND NORA CEBOTAREV

To think about the loss of our friends, although it is sad, can be healthful, if it aids in remembering they are irreplaceable and special.

There are persons that fortify and inspire us and you NORA are one of these people. A friend and sister who became part of my family.

FRIENDLY,

AFFECTIONATE,

DETERMINED;

PATIENT.

I am sad for having lost a last opportunity of telling you how thankful I am for having shared yours affection and experiences and just how much you truly met to me.

Your qualities are as much that it becomes difficult to enumerate them and sometimes, I just can not imagine what I did to deserve a friend as wonderful as you have been.

Love, donation, allegiance and creativity were part of her life style. At last, a wise woman; who with her bellwether and delicate voice brought peace and light for all the people that were close to her.

During our times together in Guelph and Brazil, we grew so close to each other, you transmitted to me important values, such as strong capacity to make decisions and, at the same time, an immense work ethic.

But I know that for you good actions and character and the way you lived your life you will always be very well remembered by everyone fondly and with much love.

I am so grateful that Jesus brought us together to become friends. You have been a joy to know, and although you are now in heaven, you will always be remembered as my sister and dear friend.

You are truly an irreplaceable human being, and I will always cherish our times together Nora. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Rest in peace and know you are well loved.

With all my love,

DORINHA

from David Douglas, Guelph, 10/11/2007

Nora was a warm, friendly and engaging colleague, an inspiring, receptive and compassionate teacher, a seasoned and respected researcher, and a good person to have among us. The world has been a better place for her presence and her critical, global conscience, and her deep humanism and caring.

from Glen Filson, Guelph, 10/10/2007

Nora had a profound impact on me and so many students from Latin America and virtually everywhere else. I had the chance to accompany Nora twice to Russia enjoying lunch at the Duma, ballet at the Bolshoi theatre and the apocalyptic perceptions of a Dmitrov cook facing the post-Soviet decline with Nora. Her romance language fluency extended to her mother’s Czech and father’s Russian all spoken with excellent grammar and disarmingly beautiful accents. Nora not only strove for more equitable gender relations, she was a big fan of organic agriculture and always found ways to augment her advice with funding for her graduate students whether in CIDS, sociology/anthropology or agricultural extension. Her deep understanding of social change processes guided her many students and fellow faculty colleagues throughout her years. All those who’ve known her miss her deeply.

from Andrea y Noelia Kowalenko, Buenos Aires, 10/10/2007

Imaginamos que en aquel lugar del mundo cientos de personas, amigos, colegas, están reunidos para despedir a Nora, y no podemos contener las lágrimas…

Nos preguntamos… ¿qué marcas les habrá dejado? No lo sabemos, sólo conocemos las que nos dejó a nosotras: Creemos en el estudio, en el trabajo forzado porque así nos crió nuestro padre porque así lo criaron a él, creemos en el amor desinteresado y en el brindarse a otros.

De este lado mundo, somos dos personas totalmente signadas por la vida de Nora y sus padres. Dos personas quienes, incluso existen, gracias al cobijo y el cuidado que le dieron a nuestro padre. Sin semejante gesto de amor:¿Quiénes seríamos hoy?

Ahora nos viene a la memoria, todos los olores de la infancia, las historias, la infancia de papá, la
infancia de Nora. Muchas anécdotas fueron relatadas por Nora, quien cada vez que recordaba algo
bonito nos lo hacía llegar. 
 
Ya extrañamos las postales, innumerables, variadas, de lugares muy lejanos o muy cercanos que
nos hacían participes de sus viajes. Hasta extrañamos los comentarios de algún estudiante
hospedado en su casa. 

La recordamos con ternura, como Tía, tal como la llamamos siempre, fue una gran amiga, y una consejera que a pesar del tiempo, de la distancia, se mantuvo a nuestro lado. Su amistad ha sido muy importante para nosotras. Nos angustia el hecho de no habernos podido despedir, o compartir… de dejar transcurrir el tiempo relegando lo verdaderamente importante de los afectos.

Hoy te decimos adiós, y lo único que nos queda es seguir recordando, ya para siempre. Nada alterará nuestros sentimientos de amistad y cariño, tú ahora ya descansando, nosotras aquí con la lucha cotidiana.

Desde lo profundo de nuestro hogar y nuestro corazón ¡Gracias! Con el más sentido respeto y admiración.

from Francena Nolan Miller, Columbia Missouri, 10/10/2007

Thank you greatly for your recent email and the sad report of Nora's passing. Nora Cebotarev was an important personage in my life and career in rural sociology and home economics.

My memories of Nora go back to the early sixties when she came to West Virginia University and where I was leading the program in Home Economics. She came as an undergraduate from Paraguay sponsored by the Extension home demonstration agents. Her scholarship, professionalism and dedication to helping those in need impressed all who knew her and, especially me, for I was her advisor. I encouraged her to enhance her ability by graduate study and put her in touch with the Rural Sociology Department at The Pennsylvania State University where she earned her PhD degree.

As mentor, friend and colleague, I was pleased to remain in touch with Nora over the years. News of her death brought both shock and sadness. Nora lived a life of service to others. She will be remembered by all of us privileged to know her.

from Laetitia A. P. Hevi-Yiboe, Ghana, 10/9/2007

It is as though a mighty tree has fallen in the middle of the forest, and it will take hundreds of years to replace it!

I first met Nora sometime in late 1973. I was directed by my supervisor Dr. Kathleen H. Brown to look for her to find out if she was interested enough in my research ideas to serve on my committee. I did not know what to expect, but I guess I have had such varied experiences with people, since I got to the University of Guelph, that, I was ready for just anything and everything. That meeting was one of the best things that ever happened to me during my studies at the University of Guelph. Nora was not only interested, but also excited about my research ideas. She was very enthusiastic about my work and thus became a member of my committee.

Dr. Eleonora Cebotarev or Nora, I found out later was always ready to help direct and guide any student, both Canadian and foreign. As a result of her own rich international background, she had a special gift for understanding the needs of students and for directing and guiding, that always yielded positive result. At first, I thought she was solely involved with international students. However, I quickly learnt that she had even more Canadian students.

Nora had a way of imparting knowledge and professional skills so painlessly that you only realized it after it had happened and influenced you; sometimes for life. She was always concerned about aspects of her students’ life that many may consider as outside the “academic realm” but I guess she believed in helping the total person. It was difficult to be her student and not become her friend.

Nora’s ideas, encouragement and suggestion helped me greatly in writing the courses in the M.Phil. Programme in Women, Development and Family Welfare, in the Home Science Department, University of Ghana, Legon. I needed to consult someone, and she was always available even though so far away.

Your home became my home in Guelph and this made it possible for me to come back to the University of Guelph several times after graduation.

My family and I will never forget you. We will forever have fond memories of you and I am grateful for the several professional opportunities I have had as a result of my association with you. My family is indeed grateful to you.

Nora MAY YOUR SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE!

Amen!

from Susan James, Toronto, 10/09/2007

A special friend and colleague, Nora Cebotarev was a leading force in building international development as an academic offering. She worked to ensure that the University of Guelph could offer a strong program to students in learning how to understand international development, and how to play a part in effective international development work both at the micro and macro levels and theoretical and practical.

Thanks to her, an interdisciplinary group of academics at the University developed the thinking and the policy to ensure that women and men were equitably included in the development process. She led the design and adoption of the Women and Development Policy at the University, and helped to promote this in North America.

Personally, I treasured Nora as a sensitive and supportive friend, with common Czech roots, and delightful colleagues and friends from around the world. I thank her for urging me to be supportive to a mutual friend and colleague, which ultimately evolved into a very happy marriage for me.

Citation on the occasion of Nora’s installation as University Professor Emerita, 1993

Nora Cebotarev has reached the peak of a distinguished career in higher education and international development in Canada and Latin America. Born in Prague, Czechoslavakia in the late 1920's, she learned the languages of politically troubled Europe in childhood. As a result, by the time Nora and her family left Czechoslovakia for Paraguay when she was seven, she spoke German, French and Russian as well as Czech. In Paraguay, she quickly became immersed in Spanish, a language that continues to be central to her work.

As a young woman, she worked in the Extension Services Division of the Paraguay Ministry of Agriculture and later with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It was during her time in extension work that she developed concern for rural women and youth that remains a focus of her work today.

In her mid-thirties, she began the studies that led to her second career, receiving a B.Sc. from the University of West Virginia and Master's and doctoral degrees in rural sociology from Pennsylvania State University. By the time she received her Ph.D. in 1972 - two years after becoming an Assistant Professor in the University of Guelph's Department of Sociology and Anthropology - Nora was 44 years old. She brought a maturity and experience that has enriched her colleagues as well as her students.

Nora Cebotarev is a pioneer in the study of women in international development and remains an outstanding scholar of gender and development issues, particularly in Latin America. She helped found the College of Social Science interdisciplinary Collaborative International Development Studies program and is an advocate for the proposed interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Rural Studies. The idea for the University School of Rural Planning and Development was hers.

Her ability to link theory and practice has proved to be of immense benefit to her students - both in the classroom and on field study placements in Latin America. She has supervised 116 Master's and ten doctoral students, and continues to supervise more than a dozen graduate students. She has brought more than $1.3 million in research funding into the University, must of it for the support of student research. In 1993, she was awarded a University of Guelph Faculty Association Teaching Award. She has been particularly supportive of women as students. She has also done this University a great service in developing cordial links with may universities and research institutions in Latin America and also - with the benefit of her fluent Russian - with Moscow State University.

Her caring for others extends to her colleagues in her own department and other units of the University. Without fanfare, she has given unselfishly over the years so that their work could be just that much better.

We have been very fortunate at Guelph to have this remarkable woman as professor and colleague. We are glad she retains her involvement with us. Indeed, although officially retired since August, Nora remains active in the College of Social Science, serving as the Director of the college’s Collaborative International Development Studies program, supervising graduate students and teaching undergraduates.

from Margrit Eichler, “Women pioneers in Canadian sociology: the effects of a politics of gender and a politics of knowledge”, Canadian Journal of Sociology. Summer 2001. Vol. 26, Iss. 3

Eleanora A. Cebotarev was born in Prague, an only child. Her father, a former officer of the White Army, refused to recognize the Communist regime in Russia and moved to Czechoslovakia. He studied at the University in Prague for two years, but had to quit in order to work. Her mother, of Austrian background, had finished teacher training and studied languages. In 1935, her father saw another war coming, and the family emigrated to Paraguay, one of the few countries that would accept a stateless Russian as an immigrant.

They lived in an isolated rural area, with no electricity or running water. Neither parents spoke Spanish initially. They farmed, but farming was difficult, so they started an apiary and made honey, as well as wine.

There were no schools in this remote area, so all the schooling Cebotarev had before she went to university was given by her parents, whenever they had time. Her parents taught her languages. She speaks Spanish, German, Czech, French, and Russian. Her English she learned from a grammar and by listening to BBC radio.

"My father would go every two or three months to town and would buy whatever he could -- journals, magazines and newspapers" -- often months old. "When the radio came -- that was a great thing." Her parents and she spent a lot of time together. She stayed there until she was 26 years old. "I was lucky," she says about her upbringing.

When she came to the US, she took the university entrance exam – in English! -- and passed. She received her B.Sc. in Home Economics from the University of West Virginia in 1964 on a scholarship, and went on to obtain an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Rural Sociology from Pennsylvania State University in 1967 and 1972, respectively. After her B.Sc., she put herself through school with research jobs.

In 1970, she was hired by the University of Guelph, from which she retired in 1993 as a Full Professor.

She brought the experiences of her upbringing in Paraguay and of her field work in a number of Latin American countries to her sociology in Canada. Most of her publications are in Spanish -- for instance her two books about women and development (Cebotarev, 1979 and 1992), and her English-language publications, like her Spanish ones, focus mostly on family and women's issues in Latin America and Canada (e.g. Cebotarev 1985; 1987; 1988; 1990a; 1990b; 1991; 1995; Cebotarev et al., 1986).

She taught her first women's studies course the year she was hired. While she had no difficulty getting promoted, the promotion was not accompanied by a commensurate increase in salary -- a familiar pattern.

The feminist movement had "a very positive impact. It has given clarity and vision to my life, and to myself, and to my work." She is still active in supervising students, and maintains an office at the University of Guelph.

publications listed in article

1979 Mujer Rural e Desarrollo. Bogota: IDRC.

1985 "Women Strengthening the Farming community: the Case of the concerned Farm Women in Ontario." In T. Fuller (Ed.) Farm and Farming Community in Ontario. An Introduction. Toronto: RLA.

1987 "Family and Social Change." The Ecumenist 25, May/June.

1988 "Women, Human Rights and Family Development Theory and Practice." Canadian Journal of International Development, 9 (2).

1990a "Food Aid as a Strategy for Food Security in Poor Households: A Review." In H. Bakker (Ed.) The Food Crisis. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.

1991 "Women's Action in Third World Community: Why Adult Education is Not Enough." Canadian Journal of International Development 12 (3).

1992 Mujer, Familia y Desarrollo. Manizales, Columbia: Universidad de Caldas.

1995 "From Domesticity to the Public Sphere: Farm women, 1945-1985," in Joy Parr (Ed.) A Diversity of Women: Ontario 1945-1980, pp. 200-231. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Cebotarev, Eleanora A. and Linda Szeto 1990b "Women's Work Patterns in St. Lucia." Canadian Journal of International Development, 9 (2): 259-278.

Cebotarev, Eleanora A., W.M. Blacklock and L. McIsaac 1986 "Farm Women's Work Patterns," Atlantis 11(2): 1-22.