05-05-2025
- General
- Hamilton Spectator
Leonor Sorger likened to an angel for her work helping refugees
It's no wonder Leonor Sorger was likened to an angel.
She helped refugees for decades, raised money for earthquake victims, organized events against nuclear weapons, and even advocated with her husband George for high school students, many international, who faced a drastic increase in fees from the public school board to enter Grade 13 in the early 1970s.
Sorger — who died Jan. 12 at age 94 — helped found the first Amnesty International chapter in Canada and Operation Lifeline, which was dedicated to helping refugees in Hamilton.
She co-founded it about 1978 with four other people, including two church bishops, to aid Vietnamese boat people. It changed its name to the Interfaith Council for Refugees and established an office at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton and a drop-in centre at the Anglican Christ's Church Cathedral on James Street North.
It has gone on to help refugees from such places as El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Ethiopia, Iran, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Sorger's phone was known to ring constantly from people looking for such things as a babysitter, a ride or help getting a job. It changed its name to the Office for Refugees in 2016.
When Sorger retired in 2011, it was estimated she had helped 1,000 refugees over three decades. Her colleagues presented her with a clay figure of an angel holding a lantern called the Angel of Hope. The message was clear to everyone.
Sorger said helping refugees was something she could not ignore.
'When you work with Amnesty International, you read so much about torture and imprisonment and persecution that helping a refugee is second nature,' she told The Spectator.
She told the paper in 1991 she had been active since she was a child growing up in Lima, Peru. When she was 11, she went to see a judge to get justice for an impoverished woman who had become pregnant by a soldier. She was disgraced and returned to her community in the mountains.
'I told him he had to bring justice to her, that the male had to respect the woman,' she said. 'He smiled and comforted me, and told me never to change who I am.'
Leonor Sorger — who died Jan. 12 at age 94 — helped found the first Amnesty International chapter in Canada and Operation Lifeline, which was dedicated to helping refugees in Hamilton.
Her husband George, 87, recalled she worked hard getting different denominations to sponsor refugees. She helped people fleeing wars and terror under a right-wing or left-wing dictatorship. He remembers a Christmas party where Santa Claus was a man from El Salvador and the children around him were from Sudan.
'She was a rebel,' he said. 'She, at the same time, carried herself as a queen and, at the same time, had an enormous heart.'
Her daughter Tamara called her a trailblazer in the field of refugee work and daughter Carmen recalled her 'dedication meant quite often we had many people around the dinner table we didn't know.'
'My mom was an extraordinary woman, mentor, leader,' added Carmen. 'She connected with people on a level that many don't.'
Leonor Tenorio was born in Cajabamba, Peru, Oct. 29, 1930. She came to Yale University to study archeology and met her husband there in 1960. The couple came to Hamilton in 1966 when he accepted a biology job at McMaster University. She was soon helping U.S. citizens avoiding the draft because of the Vietnam War and then other refugees.
Other groups Sorger was involved in were the city's mundialization committee — she worked on twinning Hamilton with Fukuyama, Japan — Project Ploughshares, the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Voice of Women, which promoted peace and women's rights.
Sorger received the papal honour of Dame of St. Gregory the Great from Pope Benedict XVI in 2011. She received a World Citizenship Award from the mundialization committee in 1991 (she joined the committee in 1971) and a Women of the Year Award in Communications from the city's status of women committee in 1996.
Sorger is survived by her husband George, daughters Carmen and Tamara, and four grandchildren.
