Lane Changer - Liz Kaufman, embracing life back on a two-lane highway
celebrating every moment on life’s highway together
Knowing someone since teenage-hood, as I have Liz, gives you a shoulder-side view of their lane on life’s highway. Liz emerged from the womb 60 years ago this month with no need for a GPS. With a teacher-mother, Liz was both nurtured and DNA-destined to educate. When we met in high school, she was already eagerly taking on coaching skating, teaching swimming, and tutoring jobs, demonstrating the nascent skills that would serve her throughout her career.
I’ve always been in awe of Liz’s professional single-mindedness compared to my propensity to weave along life’s highway, following a lane until it looked like it was soon dead-ending or until another one opened up that held more interest. Not Liz. After an English undergrad at Western in London, she moved to Toronto to study at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute for Child Study (as it’s now called) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Ever self-deprecating, she jokes it took her a year longer than others to get an education degree suggesting she was somehow deficient as a student. In fact, ICS provides a two year education degree because it dives much more deeply into the subject matter and, based on my very limited sample size, produces top-drawer teachers.
Liz taught for the North York Board of Education and its successor, the Toronto District School Board for 35 years. She held many positions — in the classroom and out — and while some jobs frustrated her, she never lost her passion for equipping kids with the skills to succeed in life. Liz’s love of language and literacy gave her a laser focus on teaching first graders to read as a way to unlock so much for them.
Ten years into her career, Liz became a teacher, and later, a teacher-leader, in Reading Recovery, a program that provides students struggling with reading and writing with tailored one-on-one intervention. Developed by New Zealander, Marie Clay, the program boasts a very high success rate. There is no doubt the enthusiasm Liz brought to the individual lessons she gave to countless students changed their lives forever, just as full classrooms of students gave her chances to demonstrate other aspects of her boundless energy and, well, endless fun! As someone who’d sooner eat razor blades than spend even an hour alone with even one child, I am grateful there are people like Liz Kaufman who take such satisfaction in moving the needle on children’s development. Good teaching in those formative years will surely make for better adults which in turn, should help improve the world. Or so goes the theory.
Five years ago, Liz’s father, Rolly, began experiencing some physical health issues and her mother, Shirley, showed signs of dementia. Liz has always had close ties with her parents, despite the physical distance between her house in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood and the family home in Wingham where I hung out as a teen and where her parents remained. Her family suffered another significant blow that year which precipitated Liz taking a leave from work and moving part-time to Wingham. The balance of part-time slowly shifted so her time in Toronto was more the exception than the norm.
Eventually she made the lane change official, opting for early retirement from teaching and, two years ago, selling her home of two decades and moving all her things into her parents’ basement. No time to consider what to do with those things — no, she was full-on caregiver. She joked she was signing up for the PSW course, since that was clearly her future.
Not long after she solidified her commitment to retiring in Wingham, she reconnected with her high school boyfriend. While she and Dave, another Winghamite, considered a life together 40 years ago, circumstances led to their break up. Like me, Liz spent most of her life living alone as a self-described “spinsta.” In 2023, though, Dave was also single. Before long they picked up where they left off: all the things about each other that they loved as young people were still there, and while outwardly wrinkled, the maturity of being 40 years older smoothed out any wrinkles that made their relationship impossible in the 1980s.
2025 has marked a major lane change for Liz. Between July 1 and August 30, Rolly and Shirley moved to Goderich into a retirement home with services that currently work for them both; and Liz and Dave moved into the dream home they’ve built in Wingham. Liz couldn’t be happier, living the domestic life she’d missed all through for her teaching career.
These Lane Change profiles have shown us that life-highways are multifaceted. Like many of us, Liz Kaufman spent decades with a single focus: her career. She’s now shifted lanes in favour of community and companionship.
Happy birthday, Liz and best wishes for a long and happy life with Dave in Wingham!
Curious about my Lane Changer series? Check out these profiles
Peter Chandler, how it all began for me
Cathy Crowe, her lane is the street
Marissa Bastidas, same lane, new direction
Pam Hudak, living on a multi-lane highway
Jennifer, crossing lanes from Phuket to pup-minderEmma Simpson, from taxiway to writing terminal
Jessica Waraich, changing lanes on the career on-ramp
Michelle Simmons, straddling two lanes in her mid-40s
Sybil Chandler (1928-2025), proud to find life’s off-ramp
Faiv Noelle, solo on a global highway
Karly Wilson, waiting aside life’s highway for the next lane
Marya Williams, when life’s lanes bring you full circle
Carolyn Whitzman, lanes inspired by mother and grandmotherValerie Groves, when the lane is bordered by perennials and pollinatorsElana Harte, Changing lanes on the “Being of Service” HighwayFaren Bogach, the fast lanes of lawyering
Cathy Mann, finding the lane to Nova ScotiaDenese Gascho, finding common ground in different lanesSafiya Randera, lanes that cross land, community, and artChristine Mounsteven, nine decades, still driving forward on life’s highway
When a sector changes lanes: How ONPHA gave me hope Veronika Tursik, in a new lane and behind the wheel for the first time!Lane Changing Rings
If you like what you’re reading, there is no greater compliment than to become a subscriber. Sign up below with your email address to receive an email with my weekly blog.