Needless to say, words are woefully inadequate to express condolences to you and all who loved her in this time of such tragic loss. But she will live on in our memories. She was, quite simply, one of the brightest and most interesting young women of her generation.

Six years ago, from January to June, a group of seven women gathered every Sunday afternoon for three hours. The purpose was ostensibly a directed studies course in Women's Studies, but the real purpose was much more important: each woman was interviewing three generations of women in her family in an effort to chronicle the changing lives of Canadian women in the twentieth century. These precious historical stories would be collected with others from all the regions of Canada and would be sent by the Commonwealth Secretariat to the 1995 United Nations conference in Beijing.

"Sending Granny to China" was our code name, and the project became intensely important to the participants because of the new kinds of knowledge we were creating and the intensity of relationships within the study group and across the generations of women being interviewed.

In a group of very intelligent women, Theresa quickly emerged as the leader. So bright and knowledgeable, she seemed able to produce sophisticated, riveting work almost effortlessly. In fact, after writing her own family's story, she undertook to compose the introduction as well.

But if she made the work look easy, this wasn't the experience. Because Theresa was a risk-taker, she had continually to balance her own radical truth-seeking with the needs of the other people with whom she worked. Her generosity was manifest everywhere in this work, and the result was a creation everyone rejoiced in.

But the story doesn't end there. A few years later, I received a phone call at my home one dark, cold night. It was Theresa. Could she come see me. Of course, I said, wondering what would inspire such an unusual request. A few minutes later she arrived, and when I opened the door, she filled my arms with flowers. "Thank you", she said tearfully, "for inviting me into the project. My grandmother has just died and because I wrote her story I have her now in a new and special way in my heart."

Theresa's published story lived on after the departure of her grandmother; now sadly, it lives on after Theresa. But it does survive; so too will the memory of Theresa among all of us who worked with her and grew to love her serious and graceful spirit.

Christine St. Peter