Yvonne grew up with an alcoholic father who thought education wasn’t essential. Teachers made her feel she was wasting their time and didn’t count as a person, so she quit school and married young. She knows she always lets others make choices for her, even the doctors, whose treatment information she couldn’t grasp, when facing breast cancer at 37. Learning to read and write with a tutor from Laubach Literacy Fredericton has given her the courage to set goals and make informed decisions for herself. She won an Alpha Award and the 2000 Canada Post Literacy Award in recognition of her progress.

I grew up on the north side. I was pushed through school to grade seven. I couldn’t write or read...just a bit, not enough to do everyday things. My father didn’t feed us most of the time, wouldn’t buy us books for school, and was very abusive. My mother didn’t drink and was a wonderful woman. Growing up we always thought, “It’s Mom’s fault, like, what’s up?” But it wasn’t Mom’s fault. It was Dad’s drinking, but we didn’t realize it then. I got married. It was like a scapegoat...out of one frying pan into another. My husband has a chemical imbalance, so I went through a lot with him. I didn’t speak to anyone, never went anywhere, just worked all the time in the woods. I couldn’t do banking. I had someone make out loans and contracts in my name and I would sign them.

Having kids, you need to know how to care for them mentally and physically. I never went near the school. The same teachers might have treated my children the same way, that “if your family’s no good, then you’re not.” I couldn’t read to them. I had a friend, Mrs. Cooper, a teacher. She helped my kids and would teach them to read at her house. I would buy books with cassette tapes at the grocery store. All of my kids are grown up, graduated, and went to university.

I had a back injury first, then breast cancer, then went back a third time when I ruptured my bowel and needed reconstruction. In the hospital for my back, I laid there and couldn’t read the menu. They didn’t bring me anything I wanted because I didn’t fill it out. When I had cancer, I felt stupid. They pass you forms to sign and sheets to read. I thought everyone knew what was best for me, that everything was right to go with, but I had too much radiation and now my hands are all crooked. I wanted to know more, to be able to ask questions with the doctors.