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By Bill Hutchins
with photography by Bernard Clark
Liz Schell has many passions in life. The soft-spoken septuagenarian loves to build stuff, change things and reinvent herself. It’s been her lifelong calling card.
The long-time Portsmouth District resident has never been afraid to try new things — from home decorating to municipal politics.
“I’ve always been fascinated with how things work. Why do people do what they do? How does society work? I’m just generally interested in anything.”
Liz was born in Winsford, Cheshire County, England in 1950. Her father, Arthur, fought in the Second World War in the North African campaign, and her mother, Margaret, was a nurse’s aide during the war. Liz says she “never knew England,” because her parents moved the family to Canada while she was still an infant, along with older brother David.
“We moved to Gananoque. Dad got a job as a baker’s helper. Then he joined the Canadian military in food services.” She says her father had met some Canadian soldiers while stationed in Sicily, and that may have planted the idea to seek a new life elsewhere in the British Commonwealth. Liz describes her own social upbringing as modest working class in post-war Canada. . . .
