Amazing women we know

[Mendalla]

Given that it's International Women's Day, here's a thread to celebrate amazing women, specifically ones we know personally who may not be well-known or celebrities (those women will likely get enough press without our help).

And all my best wishes and applause to the women of WC2 on this day when we celebrate the place of women in our society, and focus on the struggles and issues that face them.

 

[Mendalla]

Now, I could put my wife here given her history, but I figure I talk enough about her in other threads, so I'll put forward another woman that I have known for a long time.

My employer's Vice-President and General Manager was my second interview with the company (she only held the second title then) so I've known her for close to twenty years. Even then, she registered strongly on my radar and was the one who sold me on the company moreso than my boss, who sold me on the job. She started out running one of our early, pioneering operations, then moved to head office not long before I met her. Over the years, she's seen us through expansions, acquisitions, and the odd bit of turmoil, even directly managing branches when there were gaps in the management team. All through it, she kept up her own college registration (she's an RRT) and kept seeing patients and even taking on-call. Her greatest strength is a laser-focus on our vision of being the best in Ontario at helping people breathe. And she reaped the rewards of her dedication a few years ago when she was promoted to VP after the previous VP retired after a long career in our corporate group. And all through that, on the personal front, she raised two adopted Chinese daughters and weathered a divorce.

Personal note: At Dad's memorial, one of the things that really perked me up and kept me going through my grief was looking into the chapel, mostly full of friends of Dad and his third wife who were really strangers to me, and seeing her sitting there. Yep, a senior exec came to my father's memorial, which reflects on both her and on the company.

 

[Carolla]

I would like to recognize the women who come to The Compass women's group where I volunteer on Wed evenings. They are women who struggle, who are marginalized, who are reviled or invisible in many segments of our society - who persevere although so many odds are against them. And to the many women who volunteer and run The Compass - an amazing neighbourhood hub that graciously supports so many people in our community.

 

[Lastpointe]

A good friend who runs a not for profit, inner city ballet school.

She is a remarkable woman. Was a child in Holland at the end of the war. And has run this school on a shoestring for 30 years


And my mother in law. She got her masters in chemical engineering in her second language. While working full time, raising two kids and looking after a husband who was old school. She did everything!

Then she taught at Westerns engineering school. At the time she was the first female instructor. They didn’t want to hire her because they didn’t have a staff washroom for her to use.

And while she did all that, she was also the best baker I knew. Gosh her cakes and torts were amazing

 

[Carolla]

Ah Lastpointe - you make me think also of my mother-in-law. A woman who left Italy in 1950 bound for Canada, not speaking any English at all, never having travelled and with her three children under age 5. They sailed for who knows how long, and arrived to join her husband who had left Italy almost 2 years prior. I cannot imagine the courage that was required - having also lived through the war years in northern Italy, which changed hands many times.

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

German news showed pics of women demonstrating all over the world today, in India against abuse, in Europe for equality, in Turkey, they were dispersed by the police. Cheers To the women who go on the streets!

 

[BetteTheRed]

Today was a really enjoyable day on CBC Music (aka Radio 2). All women, all programs - singers, composers, directors, musicians, etc.

I have two amazing women in my immediate family:

My Grandma Bush:
- born to a bipolar man, of 'wealth', in Lithuania, who ended up in Liverpool because he gambled away the inheritance that was supposed to take him to America. Mania can be successful; at one point, he owned a 'chain' of three gentleman's haberdashery shops in the Merseyside area. And then he was broke again, Grandma said she never knew if she'd wake up in a mansion, or a hovel. She was at one point engaged to the son of an Argentinian cattle baron, who proceeded to die during the great Spanish Flu epidemic. She ended up in service in a big house, married a gardener much her senior, had four children, 3 of whom are still alive today.

My godmother, Ann:
Reinforced my love of literature. She and her Mom bought me and my kids so many books over the years, it was crazy. Her mom, Olive, mailed me Christmas copies of Anne of Green Gables and Heidi that I own today. Several years in a row, we waited for our summer vacation at Ann's cabin because the newest Harry Potter was 'out' and there was a hard copy waiting for the kids to fight over reading for a week. She and I also had a few wonderful late night drinking sessions over the years that seemed to cement our relationship. She loved random free thinking, especially by young people, more than anyone I'd ever known. She and her husband, who is still alive and whom I love and honour today, couldn't have kids. In their 50s, they adopted a teen lesbian who had been kicked out of her family for her orientation. She's a very successful professional today, and keeps super wonderful eyes on him as he enters extreme old age.

 

[Luce NDs]

Can you imagine why the indelible mind takes on an image of a lesser power on loan for lent ... it is almost a psyche show of the empty school of thought! And the man drove it to that and thus it went ... sometimes at Four in the Morning ... there are so many ballads about the missing and hung out there ...

Alas like God they are just insurmountable words ... quite a heap to get through really ... Cis heh fuss ... it goes round!

 

[revjohn]

Well,

These selections are a smidge biased.

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www.mun.ca

Some of the degrees are wonky. PDP (Professional Degree Program--This is her teaching degree) PBD (Post Baccalaureate Diploma (also teaching) MADS (Master of Applied Disability Studies). They should be adding another degree which is a clinical M. Ed that also allows her to do clinical assessments.

Wicked smart.

Cambridge author Joyce Spring completes high flying trilogy

At the age of 93, Joyce Spring is not about to sit back on her laurels and take life easy.

www.cambridgetimes.ca

Love the stuffing out of this gentle soul. She survived the crash which claimed her husband and has also buried three grand-children and her eldest son. It was my uncle's death in 1988 which was the catalyst for her to write about the women aviators of Canadian aviation history.

 

[Delightful Life]

Too many to list

My wife, my mother, both my Omas, Boudica, the Venus of Willendorf, the Goddess Inanna, the Whore of Babylon, Mary Shelly, Jennell Jaquays, Sophia, Judy Tenutazas, Annie Sprinkle, Wendy Carlos, Bilqis, Jan Morris, Blair White, Abigail Thorne, Abby Stein, Beatrix Potter, Kate Bornstein, Sappho, Fran Blanche, Koko