This is me on my 21st birthday. My colleagues at work and my family gave me lots of flowers, and my father photographed me with them. This photo was taken at our home in Tallinn in 1956.
In 1948 I entered the pre-school department of the Leningrad Teachers' Training College. I always liked children and liked spending time with them. I thought this might be interesting for me. From then on I put aside whatever doubts about going to study in Leningrad. In 1954 I graduated from my college with honors. Since I came from another Republic, I went back to work in my country. Other graduates had work assignments to work in various locations of the Soviet Union. Many went to Siberia or to the north of the Soviet Union. I returned to Tallinn.
I went to work as a lecturer at the Department for Pre-school Education of the Tallinn Teachers’ Training School where I met my future husband, Veljo Vee. Our school also housed a vocational school where Veljo was a student. Later my husband told me that he often saw me in the lobby of our school and thought that I was a student of the Teachers’ Training School. Had he known I was a lecturer, he wouldn’t have dared to talk to me. It was fortunate that he believed me to be a student and approached me. For me, it was love at first sight: it was either to be him, or no one else. We met in May 1956, and in late 1957 we got married.
