N.B. news: entrepreneur honours memory of mother with thank you note legacy [Video]

Emily Somers has always known a gift received should be followed up with a handwritten note of gratitude.

She has her mother Saunders to thank for that polite habit.

“We were a ‘thank you card’ family,” says Somers, owner and operator of ES Designs – A Saunders Story based in St. Stephen, N.B. “After Christmas we would sit down and write our ‘thank you’ cards.”

Somers says her mother, a beloved elementary school teacher who passed away in 2007, was a big advocate for manners and respect.

“She made us write a thank you card for everything we ever received whether it was birthdays, Christmas, grad gifts, you name it,” says Somers, who initially viewed the task as a chore, later understanding its importance after her grandmother showed her a box full of cards and letters received over the years.

“She told me ‘this helps me keep everything straight,’ and I just never forgot that,” says …