Circumstance: How One Woman Defied Convention to Succeed in Business and Life

This memoir is the journey of a girl who found the public library and the Baptist Church in the railway town in Northern Ontario at the age of eight. The library books gave her the knowledge she needed and Jesus gave her the strength to endure the journey. Her father who believed in spare the rod and spoil the child, taught her how to work. Her mother softened the hard lessons she had to learn. Independent at age fourteen, after repeating grade nine three times, she travelled to Toronto and began a new life where she met new friends and challenges. Her first home was a bed in a hostel at the YWCA where she lived until she moved in with a family of 14 the following year. Her father died when she was 18 and the events that followed gave her the determination and endurance to succeed. Her first job in Toronto was as a file clerk. Through night school and hard work, she progressed through corporations to college professor to president of a financial planning company. Her ultimate dream was to be a writer and this is her story.