Memoir Collection
Elizabeth (Liz) Wetheral
Elizabeth Wetheral was born on the Alberta prairie home of her maternal grandparents. She and her sister were abandoned early by their veteran father. The small family survived a 10-year period of poverty, violence, and unsettled living. Her early love for reading and nature provided some quality to simple living. Settling on a small farm in central Alberta with a caring step-father was a healthy change for the better. Copying the foolish trend of early teen marriage/children limited her options for employment and equality in relationships, Liz took the option for training as a single parent in Edmonton, provided with quality daycare but returned to her preference for rural life with remarriage and faced the realities of sexist norms: parenting to be the job of wives/mothers; farm income belonged to farm only; and the expectation that off-farm income was needed to pay for basic living costs. Community volunteering and part-time employment in Family Services was a true education and provided rewarding social justice pursuits! From age fifty onwards as a single feminist in both city and rural settings, Liz valued focused activism in sisterhood in which she has a lot of pride. Liz says "At present (January 2024), I am almost 79 years old and truly grateful for my stable health condition, due to cancer oncologists and monthly care at the Camrose Cancer treatment centre at St. Mary's Hospital. The current health and social justice issue for me is that I am not permitted to access M.A.I.D. here in St. Mary's Hospital. I am registered with Alberta Health Services (my choice). We all know that this is about religious administration for our only hospital, centuries of discrimination in our province of Alberta. I am proud of my employment and activism in Edmonton and throughout central Alberta. I am sustained by relationships with nature, valuing arts in many forms, and connectedness with social justice activists of this day."
Student & Academic Services for The Alberta Women's Memory Project - Last Updated February 15, 2024
