Sheila Barshay Goldbloom was born in New York City to idealistic parents both of whom had immigrated to the United States as young children. Her mother was an avid reader, an early Zionist and a supporter of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. She prized education above all and set Sheila on a path that would include four years at Mount Holyoke College during the Second World War. Victor Goldbloom, a Montrealer, met Sheila while a resident in pediatrics at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Their marriage brought Sheila to Montreal and eventually to Canadian citizenship. She joined the faculty of the McGill School of Social Work and pioneered in the development of curricula related to community organization. Here Sheila tells the story of her childhood, marked irrevocably by the death of her father when she was ten years old. Her life in Quebec was punctuated professionally by the increased engagement of the government in the delivery of education, health and social services, while her personal life, notably her husband's role as an elected official, afforded her a vantage point on the Province of Quebec available to few anglophone citizens. The events recounted here, from linguistic and religious divisions to the referenda on separation, will be familiar, but the lens of this woman, Jew, immigrant, activist offers an important and often surprising perspective.