I was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on December 11, 1929 and we moved to a farm in Minitonas area in May of 1935. I went to Oakhurst School, taking grade one to eight and grade nine by correspondence at that same school. I went to Argyle, MB and stayed with friends to take my grade ten and that was the end of my school days. My parents were strong believers of getting an education but I was not fond of school. My father had broke up more land and he put me to work picking ROOTS for the summer holidays in hopes that I would go back to school, but that did not work. With it being toward the end of the second world war there was plenty of work to be had on farms as the men were not back home yet.

I have two sisters, Dorothy born in 1934 and living in Gimli, MB and Phyllis, born in 1941, living in Swan River, MB.

My first job was working for my father who paid me $40.00 a month plus room and board. Of course with that job I always had the privilege of using the car and other comforts of home. I had other short term employment throughout the year but always ending up on the farm in the summer to help out.

We were very fortunate not to have lost any family or close friends during the war.

I left my parents' home in June, 1949 when I got married. I met my husband when he came home from the war in 1946 at a local country school dance. We were married in Swan river United Church manse. Our best man and bridesmaid were friends who were married three weeks before us and we had stood up for them. We went to the farm, no honeymoon, the reception was at my parents' home with family and close friends.

We never took in boarders.

From time to time we had summer hired help on the farm. These young men became life long friends.

Our first son, Orlan, was born in June 1950. He joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police force after grade 12 and was posted in British Columbia where he still resides and is still in the force. (33 years) 1970.

Our second son, Dean, was born in June 1953 and worked for a few years for Arctic Cat while waiting to get into the Fire Department in Winnipeg where he still works.

Our first daughter, Karen, was born in May, 1954. She worked for Great West Life for 5 years and then took her LPN nursing course and has worked ever since.

Carla, our second daughter was born in April 1964. She got her grade 12 and has worked for several years in a bank.

I have approved of all their career choices. At times it took some encouragement to get them to get their grade 12, but from then on they seemed to know what they wanted.

I have never felt the need to work outside of the home as I am not a career oriented person. Life in itself is a career. On looking back, if I was to have chosen a career outside of the family home, it would have been hairdressing. I really enjoyed working with hair. At the time, however, home perms were very popular and it was said at that time that hairdressing shops would be a thing of the past, they would not be needed. I am a home loving person at heart and have enjoyed being a homemaker. I was content to make home and raising a family my career. That was my job.

My first reaction to having to go on to dialysis was that I had bee so ill and through so much prior to diagnosis of kidney failure, with Crohns disease and other surgery, and the fact that when I looked around me there were so many people worse off than me, that I could accept it much better. It was almost a relief to have a name put to my illness and even though we had to move to Dauphin after most of my life in the Swan river Valley, I was able to readily accept this too. We had been talking and thinking we would soon have to move off the farm anyway as we were 14 kms from town, thus we had been trying to prepare ourselves for a move for a few years.

I like living in Dauphin OK. It is a town of trees and flowers in the summer and beautiful leaves in the fall. It is kept clean. The part I don't like is leaving all our friends in the valley. As I become older I do not go out as much and do not belong to service clubs to meet other people. However, an upside is that we are closer to our Winnipeg family and we do have many visitors from the valley who drop into see us.