Betti Broomfield

"So that's another reason why it's a piece- meal education for me - grab it where you can. "

Betti Broomfield was born in Paradise, but on the wrong side of the river.

"We lived across the river from the school," Betti explains with a wry smile. That meant she had to miss about a month of school at freeze-up and break-up each year, as well as during blizzards and storms. Finally, the school in the tiny Sandwich Bay village of Paradise River burned down, and then there was no school for years. The children were picked up in a boat to be taken away to boarding school for 10 months of the year, or they didn't go at all.

By the time she was 13 and her family had moved to Happy Valley, which then had only "a tar paper shack" for a school, I was very behind. Though I wanted to learn, I left school." It took Betti a long time to get over the stigma created in those early years.

"When that happens to you, you start to believe you're stupid - you've never had a chance to find out that you're not.

"I used to say I had grade six because it sounded better, and then later that didn't sound so good either, so I moved it up to eight I could write and read simple things like recipes and signs. But I always knew I wouldn't be satisfied 'til I got to Grade XI."

After quitting school, Betti went to work as a housekeeper for an American woman on the USAF base in Goose Bay. "She used to encourage me; she used to say "Bettina, you can do it."

She was a very inspiring person to me. I used to listen to her stories about high school, proms, and things she took for granted; for me, it was a dream, like going to Hollywood. For years I thought I would never be able to do any of those things, didn't think I was capable."

"I was dying to go back to school but I was very embarrassed and ashamed I didn't want anyone to know I had so little education."

Confidence came slowly. She was married with three children (three more came later) before she finally got the courage to go to night school.

Betti went to night classes for years, but progress came slowly since she was working at a couple of jobs as well as at home. Finally she decided that she would have to concentrate if she were going to get her certificate. "One year later, when the grade XI equivalency certificate came in the mail, I thought they must have made a mistake. Isn't that terrible? I didn't give myself that credit."

But confidence was building. When a trade school instructor suggested she be a cook, Betti told her, "I want more than that and I can do it - I have a grade XI certificate from that day on" Betti laughs, "I've been saucy as a dog."

The teacher then encouraged her to sign up for clerk-typing-bookkeeping, and nine months later she completed the business education course at the local vocational school. Now that the province has grade XII, she wants to work towards that starting with math.

"For years I was told, and I believed, I couldn't learn math. To know you can do it after so many years: it's like an awakening." And as for writing, "I now can write a letter, if I appreciate what someone's done and want to thank them."

Betti remembers feisty B.C. newspaper editor Ma Murray as one of her inspirations. "She had never gone to school, didn't know proper English and swore a lot. But she wasn't afraid or ashamed."

In 1985, Betti fulfilled a long-time dream to spend some concentrated time learning hand - crafts: she enrolled in the nine-month course at the community college in Stephenville. She chose to live with a Pakistani family, and thoroughly enjoyed her time there.