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Muriel Overgaard was born in Elbow, Saskatchewan in 1920. She went on to become the first female President of CUPE BC, serving from 1976-1980, and ran as an MLA for the NDP. She played a significant role in establishing CUPE's Women's Committee, the first for any BC union, and in the establishment of the municipal pension plan.

Elsie Dean, 99 years old at the time of this interview, grew up in Saskatchewan during the 1920s and '30s. She describes the impact of the Depression on her family's livelihood. Educated to Grade 8 in a one-room school, Elsie took correspondence education for Grades 9 and 10, then took a job with room and board to save enough to finish high school, which she did.

Moving to Vancouver in 1942, she worked for a small lumber mill but was fired for organizing workers into the…

In this interview, Bonnie Pearson talks about growing up in Saskatchewan and the early influence of her activist parents. Bonnie details her early union involvement as a national representative with CUPE in 1980s, the Devine government and privatization, her move to a job with HEU in Kelowna during a time of re-structuring and changes within the post-secondary and health care fields over the years.

She describes the struggle to gain a provincial agreement for college educators, with…

Nov 2 2011 Violet Third (née Schleger, b. 1921 in Neudorf, Saskatchewan) is the daughter of German immigrants, her father owned a cement-contracting company and her mother was a dressmaker. At the age of three, the family moved to Vancouver (the West End) where Violet attended Dawson Elementary School and a commercial secondary school on Broadway and Granville. Her first job was in her sister's restaurant on Pender and Granville. At nineteen, Violet met her first boyfriend and soon-to-be…

March 23 2005 James Wallace Troy (b. 1942 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan) is the eldest of three children (one younger brother, Gordon (d. 1961 in a motor accident), and one adopted sister (still living in Victoria)). His father, John ("Jawn") Thomas Troy (b. 1900 in New Brunswick), was the second youngest of four boys. As a railroad dispatcher in Duncan, John commuted daily from Victoria (where they moved to when James was a few years old). During the Second World War he served as a sergeant…