This lively biography compellingly traces the exceptional life of Dr. Vera Good (1915-2019). Born into an Old Order Mennonite family in Waterloo County, Vera Good made her mark as an educator, concluding her working career as an executive producer of children’s programming for TV Ontario (1965-1981). She laid the conceptual design and was the first executive producer for the long-running children’s series The Polka Dot Door, for which she received a Gemini award in 2000. Prior to her work in educational television she was highly regarded as an innovative educator, was one of the first female principals in the Toronto school system and the first female Inspector of Schools in Ontario. In her early 30s she served in India as a volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee (1946-1949), during the years when India gained independence. Her postsecondary education took her to diverse locations and institutions, including Stratford Normal School, Goshen College, Northwestern University, and finally Columbia University for her Doctorate of Education.

Nancy Silcox's profile page

Nancy Silcox is an award-winning writer, has twenty years’ experience as a high school teacher, and concluded her career as a counsellor in the Special Needs Department at Wilfrid Laurier University. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Waterloo and wrote an education column for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record for eight years. After her retirement in 2005, Silcox moved into full-time freelance writing as a columnist for Waterloo Region Record and a magazine features writer for many periodicals. Since then she has written a dozen books, with an area of specialty in personal biography, historical biography, and art. She has received two Queen’s Jubilee medals and a Canada 150 medal for excellence in writing.