By Christine Hamelin
with photography by Bernard Clark
Jerri Jerreat is passionate about environmental stewardship, social justice, teaching and writing, all of which she approaches with determination and integrity. Always looking for ways to create a better world, she believes that “writers can lead readers toward hope and positive action.”
The youngest of three girls, she grew up in St. Catharines. “Our wonderful mom, Amy Lou Jerreat, was strikingly beautiful, and brave enough to leave a bad husband when nobody else did,” says Jerri. “She left when I was four. We had lots of help from my grandmother, my great-aunts and my aunt and uncle.” Amy Lou was an inspiring role model for her daughters: she worked part-time and then returned to school, earning her B.A. and becoming a high school teacher. Her brother paid her tuition. “My mother was in school all my life,” says Jerri. “The year I graduated with my B.A. at Carleton, she graduated with a master’s degree from Brock.”
While Amy Lou took courses, Jerri spent the summers at her grandmother’s Niagara-area farm, which is now Henry of Pelham Winery. Her grandmother, another strong woman, had worked on the farm with her sisters, endured the Depression, moved to New York City and returned to the farm with her three children after her husband disappeared. Jerri loved the farm, which was very different from her inner-city neighbourhood on the outskirts of St. Catharines. . . .
