After the death of her mother when she turned ten, Judith Friedland learned to be resilient. She met the expectations for upper-middle-class women in Toronto in the 1940s and 1950s, which included post-secondary education, marriage, and motherhood. While raising a family and supporting her husband’s academic career, she continued her formal education through part-time study and gradually began a journey tailored to herself as an individual. In her forties, she embarked on her own academic career, rising through the ranks to become a tenured full professor and chair of the department of occupational therapy in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. In There Was a Time for Everything, Friedland reflects on her life and the fact that over time she managed to "have it all" – just not all at once.
This beautiful memoir sheds light on the expectations for women in the mid-twentieth century – as wives, mothers, and workers – through an exploration of one woman’s upbringing, aspirations, and attempts to make her voice heard.
