Florence Kaefer (née Pockett) was born in Spirit River, Alberta, in 1935. Florence graduated from Normal School in Tuxedo, Manitoba, in June 1954. For her first three years of teaching, she taught at the United Church Indian Residential School in Norway House, Manitoba; she taught for another three years at the United Church Residential School in Port Alberni, BC, where she met and married Gerd Kaefer, also a teacher. They had two sons, Ian and Glenn. In 1990, Florence completed thirty years of teaching in Courtenay, BC, where she still lives.