Eva Marie Kras

Eva (Simonsen) Kras

With heavy hearts, we mourn the death of Eva Kras, who passed peacefully on September 18th, 2022 at her home in Victoria, BC. Eva was a powerful force in the lives of so many people – her students, her business associates, readers, and of course her children. Her passion for making the world a better place was infectious and inspiring.

Eva Simonsen was born September 1, 1934 near Redvers, Saskatchewan, the 5th of 8 children of Danish immigrants. She was responsible from a young age, running the family home at age 8 when her mother's health began to decline. She moved to Moose Jaw after high school, where she earned a teaching certificate. She would remain an educator in various forms for the rest of her life. After working as an elementary teacher in rural Saskatchewan in the 1950s, Eva took a position as a group travel agent with Trans Canada Airlines, inspired by her desire to travel. She then joined the Hudson’s Bay Company, and rose through the ranks to become Personnel Manager, their first female executive. She had a way with people which would become central to her life's work.

She moved to Mexico in 1970, driven by a strong intuition that this was where her future lay. It was there she met and married Frank Kras, an engineer with UNESCO. Together, they lived in Bolivia, Peru, France and Germany, before returning to Mexico in 1980. Frank and Eva's two children, Milena and Simon were born in Mexico and Bolivia respectively. In Mexico while tutoring executives in English, Eva realized a gap between North American and Mexican work culture and wrote her first book, Management In Two Cultures. She went on to teach at various universities in Mexico and the US, work as a consultant and speaker and write 8 more books. After Frank’s passing in 1991, she eventually moved back to Canada in 1997, and found love again with her second husband, Harvey Wade, in 2003.

Eva leaves behind her two children, Milena Kras-Claydon and Simon Kras, and their families including four grandchildren: Thomas and Martin Claydon, and Cedar and Oliver Kras. She was predeceased by her parents, Simon and Anna Simonsen, her siblings Chris, Jack, Simon, Vern, and Louise, her first husband Frank, and her second husband Harvey.

A memorial service will be held at St Luke Cedar Hill in Victoria on Saturday, September 24 at 1:00 PM. The service will be livestreamed (and recorded for future viewing) on the church website: https://www.stlukesvictoria.ca/live

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Mary Lake Nature Sanctuary (via the Greater Victoria Greenbelt Society): https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/28597