Work

That was the challenge. Sleep deprived; didn’t have computers back then, so I typed everything out on a word processor, so I used my secretarial skills. The challenges were working full time, raising a family, having three children, my husband at the time was just new to the police force, so he was working nights, and just trying to balance everything. It was a struggle, but – so I guess from undergrad to law school because I went straight through, it took me ten years; and anything worth having…you have, you fight for it, so that’s what I try to instill in my own daughters. But to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have the energy to do all that. 

If you look back on your life when you are 70 years old you will probably say you had it all, but you didn’t have it all at once.

I could give advice to them that when the opportunity is there, they need to grab it and go for it. This is the country that the women have all the rights of this country that they can exercise all their – [long pause] all the freedom they exercise and everything so they'll be able to continue education, take care of family, and be someone in life.  I am proud of what I've done so far and always as I told you I meet a lot of people and a lot from different countries. And in Worcester we see a lot of newcomers who are immigrants from different countries and I’m always try to talk to those women, how they can become someone in this country. They have this opportunity. That's how I see it.

Because when I first got to [St. Peter] Marion I had fun there. I really liked it, but they had home-ec rooms, there was a sewing room, and then there was like this cooking room and I was on the tail end of all that going away. But I did experience it for like that little bit and then it was gone ....  you just didn’t do that anymore. So when they brought St. Peter’s and Marion together, it just became like probably what it is today. It was just academic, you know, it was just school and they got rid of all that stuff.

I recall that I had mentioned the teaching mentor that I had who always said if you go to school and work hard you can do anything. And I would say going to school means continuous education. It doesn’t need to be a structured school, but it’s important that people are always learning. And I do think that it’s important for individuals in future generations to know that they need to contribute to their own destiny. It’s not something – it’s not an entitlement – and that they have to work for themselves to accomplish something. So that would be my advice – what was passed on to me. I would say continue your education, not necessarily that it needs to be in a formal setting and work hard by contributing to your own destiny.