Watch above: Senior returns to school and picks up recognition for her efforts
ROSTHERN, Sask. – Lucinda Nielsen, 79, is like a sponge, soaking up knowledge and spending her days reading. For the recent recipient of the 2014 Lions’ Adult Learner Achievement Award, getting to this point has been a long and hard struggle.
“I was pulled out of school at the age of 12 because my parents needed the help at home on the farm,” said Nielsen.
Born and raised in Manitoba with five sisters, her mom’s health was bad and her three brother’s were mentally challenged. Nielsen said there was no choice but to desert her education and assist her family.
It’s a move Nielsen said changed the course of her entire life.
“All I knew I could do was hard work.”
Nielsen moved to Alberta, met her husband and spent decades picking garden vegetables for farmers and doing various cleaning jobs. When her husband died in the 1990’s, Nielsen felt helpless. She moved to Rosthern, Sask. and returned to school in 2005. This spring, Nielsen graduated from Duck Lake school along with nine teenagers.
“All the way down the aisle, oh you should have seen, everybody clapping, hooting and hollering and a standing ovation,” Nielsen said proudly.
She was also won three awards at the ceremony.
Beginning at an elementary grade level, the path has been long. Pat Cooley, is the librarian in Rosthern. As a retired teacher and volunteer tutor with READ Saskatoon, Cooley has been by Nielsen’s side every step of the way.
“I guess I could say, she’s every teacher’s dream. She wanted so badly to learn,” said Cooley.
The two have spent two hours a week together for the past nine years. Cooley provides additional help with math, English, science, health, and history lessons learned during Nielsen’s regular school days.
It’s that commitment and dedication that made Nielsen the award recipient of the Lions’ Adult Learner Achievement Award at READ Saskatoon’s PGI Golf Tournament for Literacy on Monday.
Nielsen read an emotional acceptance speech upon receiving her award.
“It resulted in some teary eyes in the room because of her very moving and very touching story,” said Shelagh Trapp, READ Saskatoon’s adult learner program coordinator.
“The best word to say is that she’s now an ’empowered’ woman,” said Cooley.
Nielsen describes her former self as shy, timid and ashamed but that has all changed.
“I’m grateful that I was able to go back,” Nielsen said, with a smile and her head held high, proving education is much more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Nielsen has recently enrolled in an online secondary program and is also writing a memoir.
Comments