As a housewife, Dorothy’s one ambition was not to be heard and not to stand out in a crowd. Now a grandmother and author of three books, she enjoys her role as public speaker at literacy conferences across Canada. When a Laubach tutor from the Fredericton Literacy Council recognized Dorothy’s learning disability as dyslexia, it started a long, hard road in learning. Forming a support group called ‘Second Chance Learners,’ she believes that “it is never too late to learn.”

I personally experienced the changes literacy brings to lives. What I wanted most was an education, realizing I couldn’t do anything without one. Discovering my dyslexia was a defining moment in my life. The self doubts, the frustration, and all the times I felt stupid and embarrassed were erased. Gone. At age 50, I had this feeling in the core of my being that I could move forward. I could learn. I could read. I could do math...well, maybe not math..but I could do a lot of other things.

After being away from school five or six years, at the age of twenty, I went back to that one-room school, to get an education. I had always wanted to be a missionary. I didn’t think of all the training that I’d have to do. A lady in our community said, “You need to be able to write letters and write them well, so that people back home will know what you’re doing on the mission field, so that you can raise support.” That, I guess, was one of the things that always has stuck in my mind, that I needed to be able to write letters. That’s why I wanted to go back.

At that time, I got a teacher who must have taken a dislike to me, or the fact that she had one more person to teach when she already had thirty students. I went until April and realized that with my math, I could never get anywhere. I never made more than 10 out of 100 all the time I went to school. The teacher would get me up to the board and get these little kids to go up and put down the answer. I knew it but I couldn’t put it down right. I’d reverse them. It amazes me no teacher ever realized that I was just reversing. Numbers don’t click at all in my brain. (Don’t ever quote me on dates and ages.) Without math, I knew I could not get into high school. I decided to drop out at fifteen and go to work. My father wasn’t able to claim me on his income tax, so I was really a bill of expense to him.

I was married and had my four children before I had an opportunity again. It was because of my husband’s health. They were going to operate on him and take out his voice box. He was unable to use the written word.

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