Anna Kaljas CM
Inducted In
1987
Anna Kaljas, born in Estonia, was a teacher and a nursing aid during WWII. After spending five years in a German Refugee Camp in Augsberg, she came to Canada, eventually arriving in Kitchener where she completed her training as a Registered Nursing Aid (RNA) and spent the next nine and a half years at the K-W Hospital.
In the 1950s she bought a house on Frederick Street to help refugees who had nowhere to stay. The refugees were followed by teenage law breakers who had been sent to correctional institutions.
The opening of group homes for teenagers allowed Anna, at first, to help ex-convicts. The opening of halfway houses, in the early 1970s allowed her to offer help to patients from some mental institutions.
In the mid 1970s she expanded her facilities to include two adjacent houses.
In May 1980, the Anna Kaljas Award was established for her more than twenty years of unselfish service as “mother hen” to these adult orphans, ex-psychiatric patients, alcoholics, addicts and other seemingly hopeless people.
In June 1983, Kaljas was enrolled in the Order of Canada.