Hazel Mc Callion - Personal Life

Personal Life

Journeaux was born at Port Daniel on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. Her father, Herbert Armand Journeaux (1879–1944) owned a fishing and canning company. Her mother, Maude Travers (1876–1955) was a homemaker and ran the family farm. The family also comprised two older sisters and two older brothers. After graduating from Quebec High School she attended business secretarial school in Quebec City and Montreal. She has stated, especially while receiving university honours, that she would have wanted to attend university, but her family could not afford it. After beginning her career in Montreal with the Canadian Kellogg company, she was transferred to Toronto in 1942, where she helped set up the local office. McCallion left the business world in 1967 to devote her life to a career in politics.

She met her future husband, Sam McCallion, (1923–1997) in Toronto at an Anglican Church congregation in 1951; they married on September 29 of that year. As a marriage present from McCallion’s in-laws, a piece of land in what would later become Mississauga, near the village of Streetsville, Ontario was given to the newlyweds. She has three children, Prior to becoming mayor, she and her husband founded The Mississauga Booster community newspaper, a paper that her son now edits and publishes. In 1997, her husband died of Alzheimer's disease. She still resides in Streetsville.

In a first-person account for Canadian magazine Confidence Bound, McCallion credited her faith with giving her the energy her job demands. "Having a life filled with purpose and meaning and living my life in a Christian-like manner helps to motivate me and keep me energized," she said. She also revealed that she does everything around the house herself. "I do my own cleaning, grocery shopping, gardening… The assumption is that people in my position have others doing all these things for them but I like to be self sufficient. Housework and gardening are great forms of exercise and keep one humble."