Prosperity is in the Mind, Karen McCullough Proves by Sharing Her Grandmother’s Story
Story by Alysia Therrien
Photography by Edwin Tam
It takes desire, attitude and adjustment to make the changes necessary to start a new life. At any age, this is easier said than done. But what if you are only 16 years old? Karen McCullough, local author, depicts how perseverance makes possibility in her new novel What The Callen Woman Know.
Karen spent 35 years of her life dedicated to her work. In all those years, she wasn’t a writer, but a nurse, and in the final 6 years was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nurse Executive at Windsor Regional Hospital. She was one of those leaders who really enjoyed the work she did. She was not one who sought the limelight, but her passion was working to improve patient care. She loved discovering new ways of doing things to make work, and life, more enjoyable and effective.
Married now for 46 years, Karen has one son who is now grown up with a family of his own. Her role in the hospital required a lot of time devoted to work. She shares that, “One of the reasons I was able to do what I did, as well as I did and as long as I did was because of the support of my husband and son.” She explains a bit further that their expectation was that she would go to work and do her very best. They basically “held down the fort”, with Karen’s husband taking on the responsibility of the household.
“As a woman, if you want to give that much to a career, you have got to have the support system to make that work so there is calm, peace and tranquility.”
It wasn’t always easy and there were often times when Karen felt stuck and unsure of how to progress forward. It was during these moments that she would bring to mind the lessons she learned from her grandmother. After asking herself “What would grandma do?”, she would jot down some notes and compare her situation to grandma’s and decide how she could choose to deal with it. “I promised myself that when I retired I was going to write a book and it was going to be a tribute to my grandmother and the life lessons she taught,” said Karen.
What The Callen Women Know is a fictional biography that Karen McCullough has written as a legacy to her grandmother. Grandma was an Irish immigrant from Cork, Ireland. A feisty woman, as Karen comments, who came from a very abusive upbringing. At age sixteen with two of her friends, she decides to flee Ireland on a ship to Newfoundland. They eventually settled in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario having nothing and knowing nothing but despair.
It was grandma’s tenacity that led to the changes and situations she overcame. She arrived poor and unsure of what true happiness was. “She said to herself ‘what am I going to do, how am I going to be the person I want to be?’ She wanted to be an independent, happy female,” says Karen.
She did what any determined person would do and that is she made plans to make her way in the world. Not every plan worked, but she did not give up until she became the woman she always envisioned herself to be.
Through her pursuits, grandma became a mother herself and then of course her children had children of their own. She sat all the children down and shared her stories, her experiences and the lessons she learnt along the way. What grandma was trying to do for the generations after her was not just tell how you can get where you want to be, but show by example how with the right mindset, you can change your life.
“We all learnt the lessons well, but I wrote the book because I thought it was important that other women could have the opportunity to learn from grandma,” says Karen. In total the book contains 23 of the lessons grandma taught. There were more, but according to Karen, the ones chosen are invaluable to any woman at any age. She knows this because in her own life and work, when she was not sure of what to do next, she found the answers within the lessons.
“Grandma had to learn the hard way, but if you followed what she taught her family, you couldn’t help but be successful. By extension, it could happen to anyone.”
Karen, who is a creative writer not by passion, but pursuit, had no time to write this book during her committed career. It wasn’t until retirement that she finally had an opportunity to take a breath and ask herself, “What do I want to do now?”
“I had a career I loved, I gave everything I had, when I retired it was really important to find something in my life that I had the same passion about,” explains Karen. She wanted to immerse herself fully into something with the same amount of force she had given the last 35 years. It was the book, which took 3 years in total from writing to editing to print, that Karen gained the same satisfaction.
Since final publication, Karen has begun the book sharing process. She recently returned from Baltimore where she was able to visit her sister and do some book signings. Karen hopes to expand her audience here in Windsor by offering her book to local bookstores, attending book clubs and signings. It is important to her that grandma’s lessons are passed on and she hopes to help clarify those messages with great passion.
Karen is currently working on the sequel of the novel and shares that out of everything she has learnt throughout her own life, there is a message she now carries. “Whatever you do with your life, love what you do. Have a passion for it, and know and understand what that is, put your head down, develop a plan and do it. Do not be discouraged by other people or other things.”
To learn the lessons grandma taught and to discover where Karen might be next, visit her website at karenannemccullough.com. What The Callen Women Know passes on what the daughters and granddaughters of a determined Irish woman learnt and by sharing these words, it fulfills grandma’s wish of ensuring they never fail.
After knowing grandma’s story and when in times of peril, Karen thinks of what grandma did for her and states, “How could I do less?”
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