Ethel was born on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, without the aid of a doctor. As her young mother had come in contact with a person with the German Measles, she was born weighing only 3 pounds, and suffered from permanent hearing loss and reduced vision. Her first few months were spent in a shoebox in the warming oven of the kitchen wood-burning cookstove, and she was fed mother's milk with an added drop of whiskey for stimulation. At the time of her birth, from head to bottom, she measured the length of her father's out-stretched hand. At 17, she took a secretarial business course and then joined a bank in Portal, North Dakota, only 7 miles from her home. She married a local American farmer and worked at the bank until, in 1932, the drought of the Great Depression drove them to Pasadena, California, where her Shoebridge grandparents and aunts and uncles lived. Over the next nearly 40 years, Ethel worked as a senior teller/accountant at a series of banks in the Pasadena area until her retirement. During those years and after her retirement, Ethel was active in a number of organizations and charities, very often as a secretary or treasurer. She retired from the last organization, a food bank, when she was about 98 years of age. In the early 1930's, she joined a group which sent school supplies and mittens to native children in New Mexico. When the others left the group, Ethel continued by herself to support the children by mailing school supplies and her hand-knitted mittens for nearly 80 years, stopping in 2013. When her husband of over 65 years died in 1980, 75-year-old Ethel bought herself a car and drove in the Pasadena area until she was 100. As well, she started traveling across Canada and the United States, taking a final cruise to Alaska when she was 104. An active knitter, she started by knitting socks for the soldiers in WWI, 1914-1918, and continued knitting and crocheting well past age 107. Most years, she would knit or crochet 80 pairs of mittens, numerous "preemie" caps and lap robes for seniors, or as she called them, "the old people". When asked about the secret to her long life, she mentioned her 12 cups of coffee every day, all the dark chocolate you can eat, and lemon juice for colds. Her mind (and tongue) remained sharp until the final months of her life. She still recalled the names and stories of people from over 9 decades earlier. At one time, she corresponded or kept in touch with nearly 150 people. She had no children.