When the map of Europe was redrawn in 1919, the region of Silesia was returned to Poland, its ancestral homeland.

The exception was an area previously controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ceded to the new country of Czechoslovakia, this part of Silesia included the village of Milikov and the farm where Annie Cieslar was born on Oct. 1, 1919.

In Milikov, Catholics and Lutherans lived in harmony. School days began and ended with songs of prayer. Sundays, the adults attended church while the children tended the animals. Annie remembers being out "grassing the cows" and "watching the people streaming down from the hills, putting their shoes on outside the church before entering, the bells pealing and pealing."

When Annie was received into the church at 14 she got her first pair of shoes. Shoes were for Sundays. In summer, children went barefoot and in winter, Annie and her siblings wore leather moccasins made by their father and socks their mother knit from sheep's wool.

The Polish and the Czech flags flew side-by-side in this small community but the political partnership was an uneasy one. Political discrimination forced Annie's father to leave the farm and his family for British Columbia where he found work as a logger. He returned in 1931 but it wasn't until war began to threaten in 1936 that his wife was convinced to immigrate to Canada. The family settled on a farm in Stonewall, Man.

Annie, old enough to leave the farm, went first to Winnipeg and later to Toronto. There she worked in a factory and on weekends in a fish and chip shop owned by two brothers. She married one of the brothers and together they opened a restaurant of their own.

After several years of marriage and the birth of three daughters, Annie and her husband separated. By then, her parents were living in Toronto and Annie and her girls lived with them. She worked during the week for a catering company and later as a seamstress for the Regalia Flag Company. Annie saved her earnings, cleaning houses on Saturdays and doing handwork to afford extras for her daughters -- roller skates, a piano -- and the appliances she would need when she had her own home.

"Our mother worked hard all her life," says daughter Wanda. "Her childhood was not an easy one and she was determined that ours would be different. My childhood was wonderful. We lacked for nothing, though it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how difficult it must have been for her."

In 1967, Annie took a holiday, travelling west to British Columbia. "From the plane, I could see ocean and the fields and the mountains," she says. "I knew I wanted to live here."

Daughters Irene and Wanda came west with their mother. Lydia, the eldest, was married and remained in the east.

Annie's savings became the down payment on a rooming house in New Westminster. However, Annie was more than a landlady for her elderly tenants. She did their laundry and cleaning and included them in family dinners. With rents insufficient to cover the mortgage and costs of improvements to the building, Annie supplemented her income by taking catering jobs. Within eight years, the building belonged to Annie, free and clear.

With Irene and Wanda married and living on the North Shore, Annie regularly crossed the Lions Gate Bridge to visit them. It was Annie's prayer that one day she would live among the mountains that reminded her of home.

By 1987, the timing was right to sell the rooming house and make the move to West Vancouver. At first, Annie moved in with Irene to help with her newborn twin daughters. In time, Annie purchased a house in partnership with her daughter Wanda and son-in-law, Del.

Annie lives there to this day, whipping up nutritious concoctions in her immaculate kitchen. Though at the age of 91 Annie is frail, the habits of a lifetime remain strong. She helps her daughters wherever she can and practises her faith.

"Looking back, I see the hand of God in my life, even to my prayer to live near the mountains. I thank God every day for my blessings."

Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 604-346-0775 or email her at lander1@shaw.ca.