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97-year-old Grand Rapids native receives high school diploma

A 97-year-old western Michigan woman has received an honorary diploma eight decades after she was forced to drop out of high school to help her family.
 
Margaret Thome Bekema finally was able to don a mortarboard and fulfill her lifelong goal in front of her friends and family on Thursday. School administrators from Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids presented her with the diploma at the Yorkshire and Stonebridge Manor senior community in Walker.
 
Bekema would've graduated from the school with the Class of 1936, but she left during her junior year to care for her three younger siblings because her mother was ill with cancer.
 
She said leaving school at age 17 broke her heart and she's thankful for the recognition.