The life story of Ljubica Zidarić
Disclaimer: What you read here are my recollections and opinions of events that I experienced with Allstate - and should not be considered statements of fact.
The life of a woman that Allstate deems to be a high risk.
Everyone claims their mother is the best — but my mother, Ljubica, meaning “little love” or “violet” in English, truly stands apart—a woman of love, sacrifice, and responsibility. My apologies to all my cousins, I know you all have fantastic mothers also! Ljubica’s story is not one of grand fame or fortune but of profound inner strength and quiet heroism that created a comfortable loving life for her family — a true testament to a life well-lived.
Coming to Canada
Born in a small Croatian village, Ljubica, sleeping on a meagre bed with a straw mattress, grew up in a world where education beyond eight years of schooling was a rarity. Yet, despite having only a minimal level of formal education, she had innate gifts that schoolbooks cannot teach: good character, creativity, and wisdom. Life on the farm was her real classroom, where, from a young age, she learned responsibility: first first taking care of the chickens, then the pigs, and then the cows, while as working the the vineyards and cornfields, and washing the family laundry in the nearby creek.
At the tender age of 16, as was normal in those times, she married Mijo (Michael) Zidarić. A year later, in the humble village home, a son, Željko, was born. Life in communist Yugoslavia offered little hope for upward mobility for those who did not align with the communist regime’s ideals. Not being a member of the communist party, Mijo joined his brother Stjepan and the wave of men leaving for better opportunities, first in Germany and then in Canada. Yugoslavia’s tyrant, Josip Broz Tito, was glad to see the “peasant rabble” depart and then send money back to support the poor families they left behind - and by this sustaining the struggling communist economy.
In 1968, Mijo arrived in Canada, joining his brother and his wife, who arrived two years earlier and had already purchased their first house in Mississauga. In those days there were no government “welcome packages” of thousands of dollars and free housing for “newcomers” - you got off the plane, found a place to live, and you got a job. Mijo, illiterate in English, found a job at the Cooksville Brickyard, located at Dundas Street and Mavis Road, where he was paid on a piecework basis for stacking bricks on skids. I still remember the massive muscles that he gained from the hard physical labour.
Lives lived responsibly
Within a year, Mijo saved enough money to buy two airplane tickets and, in April of 1969, my mother and I arrived in Canada, and we lived with my uncle and aunt for about a year. Soon after, Ljubica got a job at the Mississauga Hospital washing dishes in the dish-room. With two incomes, and saving every penny, by the end of the year Mijo and Ljubica moved into their first rental apartment. Later in 1969, after walking to work for many months, Mijo received a bank loan and bought a 1967 Dodge Monaco for $2,500. For car insurance, he chose Allstate.
In April 1970, a daughter, Marianne, was born. Some months later, my father, while working at Aimco, operating a punch press for making brake pads, in a tragic workplace accident lost three fingers on his right hand. After recovering he went back to work. My mother moved to a slightly better paying job, making socks.
Life in Canada was far from easy. After four years of hard work and frugality, by 1973 Mijo and Ljubica had saved up $5,000 ($32,000 in today’s dollars) to make a downpayment for their first house, which cost $37,900 ($243,000) and had a $33,000 mortgage at 9.5%. The house was a modest bungalow of 1,200 square foot on a 50’x120’ lot, on Crewenan Road, Mississauga. In 1974, after the new house was built, we moved in — having achieved the dream of home ownership.
Mijo was a fortunate man because in 1975 he was the first man on the street with an automated sound operated garage door opener. My father worked until 5:00 pm and arrived home by 5:20. My job was to wait inside the garage and when I heard his car coming up the driveway I opened the garage door for him to drive in. My father would then drive my mom to work with she worked the midnight shift and then pick her up before he went to work. Back in those days - I walked 30 minutes to school - there was no bus, nor mom or dad to drive.
Soon after moving into the house, Ljubica got a new job at Aloro Foods, assembling frozen pizzas, which she often brought home and sadly I hated pizza at the time. Some time later, she got a better paying job at Rubbermaid operating the mould presses but every day she came home exhausted, sometimes after working a double shift, with the stench of rubber and chemicals clinging to her. Though there was much work and penny-pinching, there was still a lot of time for family time and fun weekends. Mijo and Ljubica’s lives were not just about work; there also moments of joy and community with weekends often spent with extended family, celebrating with wine, laughter, and singing of old Croatian songs that reminded them of their faraway homeland.
From 1974 to 1979, there was a lot of hard work - and a lot of overtime worked. Frugality meant that we did not go to restaurants and Kentucky Fried Chicken was the rare luxury but not a single mortgage payment was missed. In 1979, the 5-year fixed mortgage was paid off in one lump sum. In 1980, our family moved into a new bigger house, 2,400 square feet, that cost just under $130,000 ($565,000 in today’s dollars). They had a mortgage of about $30,000 ($130,000) at a rate of about 12.5% - they were lucky to lock in before interest rates went up to almost 20% in 1981. Once again, my mother and father, working factory jobs, paid off the mortgage in five years.
By the 1980s, as credit cards began to become popular, the banks offered Mijo and Ljubica credit cards but, adhering to their value of frugality, they refused. They laughed at the financial recklessness they observed in the “Englezi” (English Canadians) and took pride in their ability to live within our means, debt-free, aside from their mortgage. Our family continued to live by the philosophy that “you buy it when you can pay for it in cash”. Every purchase was made in cash, every bill paid on time.
In 1994, Mijo and Ljubica moved once again into a new, bigger house—this time without a mortgage. With the new house, they also chose a new home insurance provider — Allstate, whom Mijo had for 25 years insuring his cars. During the following years, Mijo and Ljubica continued to live frugally, setting aside as much money as possible for retirement — RRSPs, GICs, and savings accounts. Investing in the stock market was not a gamble they were willing to take. Over the years, bills continued to be paid in the bank or by cheque. As fewer places accepted cheques, a bank person convinced Mijo that a credit card is not necessarily about credit but about convenience and easier to use than a cheque, and thus, circa 2005, Mijo got his first credit card but rarely used it - living by the old mantra that if you do not have the money in your wallet, you do not buy it. As was done in traditional families - there was one bank account with both names and the home insurance had both names. My father’s credit card, which he rarely used because he always had cash in his wallet, was the family credit card.
Life in retirement
However, unbeknownst to her, after living a life of responsibility, frugality, and goodness, now a widow, as she faces the twilight of her life, a new and unforeseen nightmare began to develop in the darkness —not one born of the fields or factories of her youth, but from corporate indifference, with Allstate being the psychopathic monster casting a shadow over her unblemished legacy.
Her story is a sad reminder that even after living a good life, doing all the right things, at age 75, heartless injustice can still strike even from those you trusted.
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