Author Janine O’Leary Cobb, courtesy of the Cobb family.Courtesy of family
After Christmas in 1985, Janine O’Leary Cobb began typing away on a Macintosh computer that she and her husband, Jack, had gifted their children, using it to write an eight-page letter about menopause. She printed it off, stapled the pages together and sent copies to about 10 friends in different parts of the country.
At that time, menopause was rarely discussed, even among friends, nor was it well understood. It was the sheer lack of available resources, as well as her own difficult personal struggle with menopause and the resulting depression, that motivated Ms. O’Leary Cobb to research and write about it.
This led to her being recognized as a pioneer in women’s health.
“For her, information was power,” her daughter Sarah Cobb said. “She just felt that more people should have it.”
Surrounded by loved ones at Verdun Hospital in Montreal, Ms. O’Leary Cobb died on Dec. 19 at the age of 92 after developing pneumonia.
That letter she wrote to inform her friends was one of her life’s most defining moments, leading her to start her menopause newsletter, “A Friend Indeed.”
“She wanted to empower women so that they didn’t feel beholden to doctors,” Sarah Cobb said.
Interest in her newsletter ballooned after one of the friends who had received it in the mail asked her to appear on CBC Radio to talk about it. A newspaper article followed. Shortly after, a mailman arrived at the family home with a bundle of letters from numerous women requesting copies of it.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” her daughter said.
Ms. O’Leary Cobb described this period as when a “new career was born.” She opted to leave a beloved teaching position at Vanier College in Montreal, where she taught humanities and sociology, to write, edit and publish the newsletter. Thousands would loyally subscribe to it.
Ms. O’Leary Cobb also wrote a book, Understanding Menopause, published in 1988. It was reprinted six times and led to speaking engagements with women’s groups across North America, in Europe and Australia.
The second of five children for Jeanne Poulin and Edward Launce O’Leary, Janine Patricia O’Leary was born in Montreal on June 20, 1933.
The tough, hard-working perfectionist and devoted word nerd grew up largely in Ottawa. Before she finished high school, she skipped two grades.
But despite her intellectual abilities and a strong desire to pursue higher education, postsecondary studies were not in the cards at that time; family finances were a barrier.
And so she opted to move to Toronto, where she got a job in advertising. She met her future husband, Jack Cobb, at her apartment building. He lived down the hall.
Mr. Cobb was the yin to her yang. He was known to be outgoing, chatty and musical. Originally from a community in England called Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Mr. Cobb arrived in Canada in 1952 with $20 in hand and a cardboard suitcase, and built a successful career in advertising.
From the beginning, he knew she was his person. “He just fell for my Mom; he told her from their first date that she was the one,” Ms. Cobb said. “She was not having it.”
Mr. Cobb also sent her letters while she lived in London, England for a year. He became her best friend of six decades.
After she returned from London to Toronto, the couple got married in 1957.
Three years later, they moved to Montreal before the birth of their first child. There, they raised their five kids. In addition to Sarah, there was Larry, Peter, Julie and Adam who remain close. Like their mother, they are all fond of the written word.
When they were children, after they went to sleep at night, Ms. O’Leary Cobb turned to homework she needed to complete for the night classes she was attending. Over the span of a decade, she completed a bachelor’s degree in sociology before going on to do a master’s.
She later taught at Concordia University and Vanier College. Educating others was the career she was born for, she always felt.
Robin Roberts, one of her students at Vanier College from 1982 to 1984, wrote in an online book of condolences that Ms. O’Leary Cobb’s depth of knowledge and sensitivity were only exceeded by her skillful management of a classroom, and that somehow there was always a high level of discourse without any student being left behind.
Then, after the menopause newsletter and book writing venture redirected her path, she was met with a breast cancer diagnosis in the 1990s, prompting her to retire.
She sold the newsletter to the Winnipeg Women’s Health Collective. But her interest in women’s health endured, such as when she served on the board and as president of Breast Cancer Action Montreal, an advocacy group that looked at the causes of breast cancer. She wanted to help others with the same diagnosis.
Maychai Brown, who worked at Breast Cancer Action Montreal after being hired as an administrative secretary in January, 2001, spent a lot of time in proximity to Ms. O’Leary Cobb and the two forged a friendship.
“She loved her husband. She loved her kids. She loved her work,” Ms. Brown said in an interview, adding that Ms. O’Leary Cobb helped others through writing and research. “She was excellent at it.”
Ms. Brown also said her pal had an affection for life pleasures like fruit cake and The New Yorker.
But the latter part of Ms. O’Leary Cobb’s life presented a number of challenges.
In her 80s, her breast cancer came back. She also struggled seeing her husband’s health decline; he had Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Cobb died on Sept. 1, 2019, his 90th birthday. Late in life, she also received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s.
In a portrait of her life she wrote for her church, Ms. O’Leary Cobb looked back on its different chapters, including when she was an advertising assistant, housewife, student, teacher, author and editor.
In it, she detailed how her main and most important role was as the “proud mother of five next-generation Cobbs.” All of her children, she wrote, were independent, decent and caring individuals in addition to being wonderful parents themselves. She also said they had blessed her and Jack with “superb grandchildren.”
To that brood of 15, she was “Nana.”
And to this day, the Cobb family still relishes in joy found in a precious spot: a brown cottage on Lac Viceroy in Quebec. It was the site of many Labour Day birthday celebrations for Jack Cobb in past years.
It was also Ms. O’Leary Cobb’s happy place, where she found the peace she long yearned for. There, she treasured a blueberry patch, crosswords, listening to CBC Radio and the quiet beauty of sunsets.
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Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the brand of computer Janine O’Leary Cobb used to write her menopause newsletter in 1985. It was a Macintosh computer.