Lives Full of Learning:
Four older women from across Canada share their personal stories

I was born to an Icelandic family on February 4,1921, in a farmhouse at Nestfold, P.O., Manitoba. I was a sickly baby, but my mother's insistence that I must live, and her constant care, got me through some perilous times in my first two years.

by Trudy Binder

My formal education began at age seven, the year I learned to speak English. School was two miles away, a fair distance for a lame little girl to walk, so my Dad or older brother tried to drive us to school in inclement weather.

As soon as I was able to read I became totally fascinated with learning. By the time I was 12 years old, my school closed due to lack of students. By then I had finished Grade VII and had read every book in the library, even the Encyclopedia!

I finished Grade VIII at home through correspondence courses with the help of my brother and sister. I recall crying bitterly because my parents could not afford to send me to high school. Since they had had no formal education themselves, they felt Grade VII was enough schooling. Many years later, after a disastrous war marriage left me alone with two children, I moved to Saskatchewan. Here a divorcee could get a Mother's Allowance, which was not possible in Manitoba at that time.

Eventually, I went back to learning again through correspondence courses. In three years I had full Grade XI and five subjects in Grade XII. Then I went out as a study supervisor in a rural school. There I remarried and became a farmer's wife.

I did manage to finish my Grade XII. The first year the Saskatchewan Government offered a scholarship of $500, I applied and won. So, in spite of having another small child as well as my two older children I managed to attend Teacher's Training College for a year.

To my great disappointment I found teaching was not for me. I ended up in Insurance and Motor Vehicle Licensing and my last job was a very challenging one in the Head Office of the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office.

I had difficulty adjusting to retirement until I became involved with the Senior University Group and took some courses. Then I began to feel good about myself again. So here I am, nearly seventy, embarking on a new career in writing, and loving every minute of it.