by Ann Dick
Times were tough in the old days. My grandmother, Elizabeth Anne, was sent off to work in the Meat Works when she was just nine years old to help put food on the table for the rest of the family after her mother died. She had to scrap and scrape just to get by, but she never gave in because she had a burning desire to better herself and she survived the tough times to build a life for herself and her family.
My mother, also named Elizabeth Anne, had a better upbringing, but faced a lot of adversity in her life, living through the Great Depression, two World Wars, and emigrating to a new country, so the lessons learned from her mother were put to good use.
The women who came before me shaped me with their strength, wisdom and resilience. Most of all, it was the love that they shared that gave me the strength to get through all of the challenges that life threw at me.
My story is their story and everything that I am, I owe to them.