Former Quinte resident Sonja Bata, founder of Bata Shoe Organization, has died at 91
Sonja Bata, founder of Bata Shoe Organization, has passed away at 91. Photo courtesy of the Bata Shoe Museum website
By Olivia Timm
BELLEVILLE – Sonja Bata, founder of the Toronto-based Bata Shoe Museum, has died at the age of 91.
Bata had roots near Belleville. Her late husband Thomas Bata, who passed 10 years before her, had taken over the family business of shoe manufacturing in the 1930s. This was after his father Thomas Sr., who founded the Czech company T. & A. Bata Shoe, in 1894, passed away, according to Wikipedia.
Sonja and her husband moved to Canada from the Czech Republic in 1939, bringing around 100 employees with them, in anticipation of the Second World War. They developed the Bata Shoe Company of Canada, now named the Bata Shoe Organization, according to Wikipedia. Mr. Bata opened the shoe factory and engineering plant, in Batawa, ON in 1940, the town which is named after Thomas Bata. The plant closed in 2009, according to the website.
Sheila Knox, acting director of the Bata Shoe Museum, wrote a statement on the museum’s website Wednesday to commemorate the passionate collector, philanthropist, world traveller and business leader. She wrote that Bata’s thirst for knowledge was both infectious and inspirational.
“We are saddened to announce the passing of Mrs. Sonja Bata, founder of the Bata Shoe Museum … Her forward-thinking and innovative ideas, as well as her resilient drive for learning and discovery, earned her a global reputation both within the museum world, as well as within the worlds of business, the environment and arts and culture. Appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983, Sonja Bata was also an Honourary Naval Captain for over 24 years,” Knox said in the statement.
In her late teens, Mrs. Bata pursued studies in architecture, but quickly changed career goals when she became engaged to Thomas Bata, Czech-born heir to a global shoe enterprise, at just 19, according to the Bata Shoe Museum website.
Bata was prideful of her Canadian heritage, and travelled the world to expand the shoe business to parts of Europe and Asia, according to the museum history. Mrs. Bata ran the museum while her husband ran the shoe company.
A popular winter attraction in Quinte Region, the Batawa Ski Hill, was established in 1959 by the employees of the nearby Bata Shoe Factory, according to Wikipedia.
The Bata name also reaches Peterborough, ON. The Trent University Bata Library is named after Thomas J. Bata to honour his contribution to the building.
“Mr. Bata was one of Trent University’s original honorary sponsors and a member of Trent’s Board of Governors between 1963 and 1973,” according to Trent’s Bata Library website.
Mrs. Bata made an appearance at the university in 2016 for a special ceremony to honour the Bata family at the school. At the event, a new $5,000 renewable graduate scholarship was created in the name of Thomas J. Bata and a portrait of him was unveiled, according to Trent University’s website.
Since the Bata Shoe Company began in the 1940s, Bata built a collection of over 13,000 artefacts, resulting in 4,500 years of history, according to Knox’s statement.
“We will greatly miss her vision, her passion, her curiosity and her leadership,” Knox wrote on behalf of the Bata Shoe Museum group.
To learn more about the life of Sonja Bata, to send a memory or tribute for the online memorial or to make a donation to the Sonja Bata Memorial Fund, which will directly support her legacy, the Bata Shoe Museum, click here.
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