105 years of living includes a lot of photos, so how can I stop at just one post about my mom? She deserves a whole train with this Caboose and I have a trainload of pictures.
Where to start?
Until she was 96 years old she was often seen walking the streets and back alleys of our town, getting exercise and sometimes tidying up the neighbourhood by picking up garbage.
In 2010 a dog pushed her down when she was walking to our house; her pelvis was broken and she spent some time in hospital, but as was her habit, she recovered surprisingly well. She continued walking.
When she suffered two broken hips from falls in 2017 and 2018, her strolling days came to an end. But that didn't keep her down.
The Pioneer Co-op had a shiny new electric wheelchair for her and after a few instructions from her youngest son, Marie was off and running.
I extend my apologies here to my Caboose Subscribers who may prefer travel pictures over the Family Photos Department. I promise I will have an interesting country to tell you about before summer is over. An unusual travel destination that I'm quite sure you have never visited and maybe aren't even sure where it is.
But for now, it's Marie and her family on this personal blog post.
An assortment of photos scavenged, shuffled and now stored in the archives of my internet Caboose, all pictures of people connected to Marie and to each other and packaged here for posterity.
Warning! I just had a look at this whole post and there are far too many photos to expect non-family readers to bother looking at. The long succession of pictures may try the patience of family members too, but at least they know everyone.
Here are Marie's five children, almost 82 down to 63 years old: Ken, Isabelle, Jean, Jim and Gord.
And 12 grandchildren: Jenny and Paul, Sahra, Matt and Lars, Luke and Jillian, Jocelyn, Ted and Bob, Julia and Phoebe.
And then came 10 great-grandchildren, in order of age : Jenna, Levi, Zack, Josephine, Rowan, William, Sam, Maeve, Winnie, and small Paul Nodge.
Fifteen years ago the family choir was singing at the Shrine Hut on Grandma's 90th birthday:
"MARIE the dawn is breaking
MARIE you'll soon be waking
Because your buns need baking
MARIE, MARIE, MARIE!"
We sang eleven verses of that custom-made song.
Marie outlived nearly everyone in her generation, our dad (who died in a plane crash in 1984), all her siblings and their spouses (below) and almost all her old friends.
But she had some very good, younger friends who she treasured until her last days. Some of them are here - Cathi, Terre, Shannon and Janet.
A series of lockdowns meant visits and phone calls outside her window at Willow Creek Manor. It was confusing at first; how could we be chatting on the phone, and then she turned around and I was also at her window?
Marie survived the pandemic of 1918 and didn't seem too bothered by the latest one. She was always smiling behind that window.
We made do with a birthday party in the parking lot.
Just a few more family groups...
What a 100th birthday extravaganza that was in 2018!
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PS I'll do some research and include a few flying stories in this series sometime in the future. Here's a taste.
It was an emergency landing for the two little planes in the jungles of Ecuador. But why are the women so dressed-up?
