Elexis (Conn) Schloss, a vibrant entrepreneur and philanthropist who supported a wide array of causes, both in and beyond Edmonton, died in Victoria on Oct. 31. She was 78.
Her enterprising and altruistic efforts were recognized in 2013 when she was made a member of the Order of Canada, “for contributions as a visionary and committed volunteer in support of health care, cultural, social service and educational causes locally and provincially.”
Schloss spearheaded initiatives for the arts, sports, immigrant women, the homeless, First Nations peoples and African children living with HIV, among other charitable endeavours. One of the achievements highlighted at her induction to the Order of Canada was her role in the creation of Compassion House, a housing and support program in northern Alberta for women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
On a personal level, she was known for trying to make everyone she met feel better about themselves.
“She was not only my world, she was a world to everybody,” her husband Eric said in an interview with The CJN. “She would talk to people on the street, people she did not know, and compliment them on their clothes or their hair.”
Born in Medicine Hat, Alta., where her grandmother helped found the city’s first synagogue—which occupied the site of a former Ford Model T dealership—Schloss’s family moved to Calgary when she was 8. Her professional life began as a draughtsman and designer before studying architecture at McGill University. In 1967, she married Eric, a dermatologist and fellow Order of Canada member also recognized for his humanitarian and philanthropic endeavours.
The couple settled in Edmonton, where she became the head of design at Maclab Enterprises for 18 years. Afterwards, Schloss launched many ventures of her own, including Truffles Darling, a chocolate company which became the official gift of the government of Canada. A story has it that the Queen Mother fell in love with her truffles and brought a large order back for her daughter Elizabeth.
Schloss also started a company that made designer angora sweaters which were sold at Saks, Neiman Marcus and Holt Renfrew, and were worn by Princess Diana and actress Victoria Principal on the television program Dallas.
Active in the art world, she had her watercolours exhibited at galleries in Edmonton and Calgary, become a qualified gilder (the art of applying gold to jewelry) after learning from the Queen’s personal decorator in London, and studied shoe and jewelry making at the London Institute of Fashion and Design.
“Elexis also had beautiful handwriting,” her husband said. “People would ask her to write wedding or bar mitzvah invitations, and she would always oblige.”
Her commitment to community service was unquestionable—holding positions on over 25 boards and committees. She co-chaired the Caring and Providing Empowerment (CAPE) clinic for inner-city residents and held board positions with Pilgrim’s Hospice, Canadians for a Civil Society and the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights.
“She was on so many boards because she always wanted to help,” Eric Schloss said.
As a citizenship court judge, Schloss granted Canadian citizenship to over 9,000 people. She would hug every new Canadian and say, “Welcome to Canada, your home.”
On an international level, schloss contributed to relief efforts in Haiti, and volunteered with her husband in Rwanda and Ethiopia where she taught creative art to children with leprosy, tuberculosis and HIV.
She was also known for her quiet acts of kindness, from volunteering in the kitchen ahead of a Passover seder to knitting hundreds of toques, mittens, and scarves for homeless shelters in Victoria, where she had a vacation home.
On Fridays, she bought gift cards from Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s to distribute among Edmonton’s homeless. To make it easier for the recipients, Schloss would tell people it was her birthday. One Friday, someone witnessing the presentation of the cards from a distance yelled, “She’s a liar! Her birthday was last week!”
Schloss’s contributions within Edmonton’s Jewish community were also numerous, serving as co-chair of the Friends of the Hebrew University, and designing and planning the interior and exterior of the new building for Beth Israel Synagogue, a modern Orthodox synagogue in the city, in the early 2000s. She and her husband were the 1995 honourees at the Edmonton Negev Dinner.
As a member of the board of Edmonton’s Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA), she was pivotal in the institution’s fundraising efforts for a new building.
Schloss was also a donor for the upcoming exhibition at the AGA, Here to Tell: Faces of Holocaust Survivors, which runs from Nov. 28 to Feb. 9, 2025. Started in Calgary, the exhibition is comprised of 65 portraits of survivors, held up in the hands of their descendants. Each photograph is accompanied by a brief personal account of the survivor’s Holocaust experience and life after the war.
Animals, too, were not exempt from being on the receiving end of Schloss’s goodwill. She was known for her love of birds and canines. Aside from her Yorkies, she kept a rescued German shepherd which she found in a muddy ditch surrounded by bulrushes near her vacation home in Pigeon Lake, Alta. She named the dog Moses.
Schloss is also being remembered for her sense of humour.
“When she was made a member of the Order of Canada, everyone was seated in alphabetic order and Elexis was next to David Sobey,” Eric Schloss recalled. “Elexis said to him, ‘I shop at your stores.’ To which he replied, ‘Oh, you’re the one.’”
Besides her induction to the Order of Canada, Schloss was the recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, the Global Woman of Vision Award, the Rotary Integrity Award and an honorary degree from MacEwan University.
In addition to her husband, Schloss is survived by her daughter, Robin; son, Jay J; grandchildren, and her brother, Sidney.
