By all accounts, Joan Deebank has had a full life. The 92-year-old joined the British army in the Second World War, emigrated to Canada years later and gave birth to five children.

But the one thing that eluded the Nanaimo senior her entire life was a high school diploma – until now.

"I never knew the day would ever come, and I'd feel so good," said Deebank, who was born in October 1925. "At thirteen-and-a-half, I was working domestic service. I never got to go to school."

Decades earlier when Joan was in her teens, her parents held her back from school and told her to earn her keep by cleaning homes.

She'd escape her home in 1939 when she joined the British army, lying about her age to secure a job as an officer's cook.

Eventually she emigrated from England to Canada in 1959, and gave birth to five kids along the way.

But years down the road, her family knew something was still missing.

"I've been with mom for 10 years and for 10 years I've watched her mourn the loss of her education," said Deebank's daughter, Sonia Lightfoot.

"There would be tears running down her cheek when she talked about it…and the one day I thought no, she's not going to pass on to her other lives without at least having an opportunity to do this."

"It made me very unhappy and I didn't have the education to get good jobs," Deebank said. "One night I laid in bed and cried and I said 'Dammit, I'm going to school.' And so I did."

That's when she turned to Island ConnectEd, a distributed learning school in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith district, for help.

For two years, teachers with the program worked with Deebank toward her graduation day.

"You work from what they already know and you build a personalized program that works for them," said teacher Kim Pepler.

Even at 92, learning came naturally to Deebank.

"I found it a breeze," she said. "It was so easy."

Getting her diploma this week made Deebank the oldest graduate in B.C. history that can be confirmed by the Ministry of Education.

She's not the oldest graduate known though – that honour belongs to 96-year-old Watson Pryce, a hereditary chief and residential school survivor who received his diploma on Haida Gwaii in 2001.

Deebank's daughter says she couldn't be prouder of her mother's determination.

"It's not just an education," said Lightfoot. "It changes who she is inside, her sense of who she is."

The 92-year-old said despite her parents pulling her out of school at a crucial age, she thinks they would also be proud of her today.

"It's never too late to go to school and learn," she said. "I never thought I'd ever get this chance. Never in my lifetime did I ever think this would happen to me."