Dry cleaner was a gem
[attach]1081[/attach]The Chaplin Estates community is in mourning after the much-loved public face of Pure Cleaners passed away in the fall.
Jeannie Han, a mother of two who operated the dry cleaning service on Eglinton Avenue, passed away on Sept. 25. She was 42.
Han had just returned from a trip to her homeland of Korea, when she suffered an aneurism and collapsed. Twenty-six days later, she died.
The fortuitously timed trip was only her second visit home since she immigrated to Canada eight years ago. In Korea she reunited with family and visited her hometown on Jeon-ju.
“She was just one of those wonderful, wonderful people,” said Ned Levitt, a longtime customer. “A delight to see.
“When the business switched over from the previous owners seven years ago I thought I might switch, but then I just fell in love with the family and thought, ‘this is where I want to be’.”
Levitt was so surprised when he learned of Han’s passing that he forgot the clothing items he had stopped by to pick up.
Other customers have expressed their condolences through donations. Several shop regulars attended Han’s funeral.
“I want to thank those members of the community,” said Han’s husband Thomas, his daughter Julie translating for him.
Thomas said he decided to leave his comfortable government job in Korea eight years ago to move his family to Canada in pursuit of a better education for his children.
“It was very difficult at first, especially the language. We arrived speaking almost no English, and we also had to study French in school,” said Julie.
The 18-year-old has taken the semester off from York University, to help get her family back on its feet. Her younger brother Eric, 16, continues his studies at St. Michael’s.
“Her memory was very good. Even if customers didn’t come for a few months, she remembered them,” said Julie says of her mother’s exceptional way with clients.
“Nobody used a ticket. She just knew everyone’s name. After she passed away it was very hard at first to deal with customers coming in without a ticket, only with their first names.”
In the Han family’s former country, women are typically the head of the household. In many ways, the world her mother built now rests on young Julie’s shoulders.
In her final days, Han and her family made a decision that goes against the traditions of their homeland — they decided to donate her organs.
With a popular neighbourhood organic dry cleaning business to run and education to pursue, the family has little time to mourn.
And so they carry on, their mother’s graceful work living on in the way they do theirs.