Shania Twain is one of the most famous female country-pop singers of all time, yet she didn’t grow up rich or famous. It’s even more amazing that she became famous because she worked so hard to get there. Before the music videos, Grammy Awards, and sold-out tours, she was a small girl living in the cold, working-class town of Timmins, Ontario. It seemed like the universe was against her from the start.
Eilleen Regina Edwards was born in 1965, and her childhood was hard. Her parents broke up when she was very young. Later, Sharon, her mother, married Jerry Twain, who was an Ojibwe. He formally took in Shania and her sisters. She took his last name and made it her own. They looked like a new family on the surface, but they might not have felt safe and comfortable behind closed doors.
Shania’s family had a rough time because they were poor. Her stepfather worked in reforestation, which was a tough profession that didn’t pay well. Her mother was terribly sad, which made her feel like she was going crazy and occasionally even made her disappear. Her mother’s depression made their home life stressful, angry, and often hard to predict.
When Shania was a child, she learned what it felt like to have nothing. The lights went out sometimes, it was too cold in Ontario’s winters to have heat, and there just wasn’t enough food. She paid attention to the small things that most youngsters don’t think about when they were young. A lot of the time, Shania sat silently at school while her peers ate sandwiches, snacks, and juice boxes from their lunchboxes. She pretended like she had left her lunch in her locker or forgotten it. She was both hungry and embarrassed. She learned to look at her classmates’ trays after they were done to see whether they had left anything behind, like a half-eaten sandwich or a piece of fruit that hadn’t been touched. Anything she could get without being seen.
She didn’t talk to other people about these issues very often. She didn’t tell anyone that she was destitute. She tried to fit in and smile so that no one would realize how horrible things were for her. She understood, though, that things were different on the inside of her life. Her childhood was tranquil and peaceful.
Music took her away from this terrible world. Shania knew from a young age that singing provided her a sense of control and freedom that nothing else could. She started singing in bars when she was eight years old. Not because it was enjoyable or thrilling, but because it paid her. Her parents realized she was really talented and needed the money, so they told her to perform. It wasn’t good. It was hard to work at these places, and occasionally the drunk clients yelled over her singing. She would sing until late at night and then get up early for school the next day, tired but ready to go.
Shania kept listening to music with calm determination even when things were hard. She didn’t have sophisticated tools or voice lessons, but she was really talented and, more importantly, she really wanted to live. She penned songs a lot to get her feelings down on paper. She created the lyrics long before she ever recorded them in a studio.
When she was in her early twenties, something terrible happened to her. Her mother and stepfather died in a car crash when she was 22. She had to take care of her younger brothers and sisters now. Being a guardian right away put her plans to become a professional musician on hold. She stopped following her aspirations and obtained a job singing at a resort near Huntsville, Ontario. She didn’t do it to become famous; she did it to feed her family and keep them together.
It took her a long time to get back to singing because her siblings grew up and were more independent. When she eventually did, her first record got a lot of attention. The Woman in Me, her second album, made her renowned. When she released Come On Over, she was one of the most successful musicians of all time.
Shania never forgot where she came from, no matter how well she did. Her music is forceful and polished, but it also has the heart of someone who has been through a lot. Her voice can be happy or sad, and it shows the many layers of her past. She has been honest in interviews about the problems she had as a youngster, not to garner sympathy but to show people what is possible.
People all over the world know who Shania Twain is. She is still alive. A fighter. She was a woman who took the anguish, hunger, fear, and doubt of her youth and made it into something beautiful. She didn’t just get famous; she had a very hard life, and her voice and story show what real heroism is.
She didn’t have a lot of time or money when she was young. They had a lot to accomplish, it was cold outside, and their dishes were empty. But they also had music, a deep love for her family, and a dream she never gave up on. In the end, it was her strong will and that dream that made everything different.