73-year-old Toni Anderson from San Diego has successfully sued for child support from her ‘deadbeat ex,’ 50 years after he left the U.S. and went to Canada to live without paying a penny in child support for the couple’s then 3-year-old daughter.

Ms. Anderson told ABC News that her ex-husband, Donald Lenhart, moved to Canada instead of paying his court ordered child support in the early 1970s to their daughter named Lane.

Anderson told ABC News that her ex-husband, Donald Lenhart, knew what he was doing when he moved to another country, and he never sent a once red cent in child support.

“I kind of put it on the back burner and just kind of forgot about it over the years,” Anderson admitted to the outlet, adding that she supported her daughter through her work as an interior designer in Los Angeles. In fact, in a sweet twist, her daughter now runs the firm where she worked.

Ms Anderson had to pay for her daughter Lane’s entire childhood herself but now at 73 and long since retired, she could use the backpay of the child support she never received.

“I’m not negating the fact I was able to send my daughter to college, Paris,” she told ABC News channel 10. “We traveled and had a good time. But the money runs out.”

Her ex Donald Lenhart is now living back in the U.S., in Oregon. And that’s when the idea came to her.

“I realized in the middle of the night one night last year, ‘Hey, there’s no statute of limitations on child support,'” she said.

That child support, which at the time was just $160 a month, added up to a considerable sum in today’s dollars. A court hearing on Wednesday found the total added up to the sum of $150,000.

Anderson says she hopes her story sends a message to other hard-working single moms out there who may not know their rights.

What does her ex Donald Lenhart think about all of this?

“I think he’s a little bit panicked,” Anderson said. “And I’m very happy because I was panicked all these years. Now, it’s his turn.”