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Fuge $ The Huron Expositor • April 1, 2009
Sins,Sins,p UuudeT Iin r
ile she's lost most of her eye-
sight and she's not able to read,
crochet or play euchre anymore,
Mary Robertson turned 100 last
= week with a very clear memory
and a wry sense :of humour.
"All that, has been taken away
from me but not the jokes," she
laughs.
Looking back on 100 years of life,
Mary muses that she's seen good
times and hard times but most
of all, she remembers the "merry
times.
orn Mary Hawkins in 1909 on
a farm halfway between Stratford
and St. Marys, Mary was one of
eight children with two sisters and
five brothers. •
"I've seen a lot of changes in- my
lifetime," she says. "Can you imag-
ine living with no car, no TV or ra-
dio?"
Some of Mary's earliest memories
are of her father Richard Hawkins
being one of the first farmers in his
community to buy a gramophone.
= "I remember my dad took it out
on the lawn and turned it up loud
so the neighbours could hear," she
smiles, adding that she loved to hs-
ten to the records back as young as
age five.
Another vivid childhood . memory
is of her _ dad Vii mother Agnes,
evrty is
who each used their own horse
and buggy to transport the family
around the community.
Her mother carried the daugh-
tersin . herbuggy and her father
carried the sons in his and because
her mother's horse was a former
racehorse, the two used to race ev-
ery time' they headed for home.
"When that horse came to a hill,
it never walked it galloped. Dad
would try to pass Mother but he
couldn't. Dad would try to take a
shortcut but' Mother would always
win," she says, adding she remem-
bers the thrilling, ride when she
was as young as four.
With her family's' preference for
using former racehorses on the
farm, Mary also remembers. her
dad taking her the seven-mile.�our-
ney to high school in St. Marys in a
short 35 -minute ride.
"Most horses would have taken an
hour. But, we lost books - they flew
out of the cutter and my friends
picked them up along the way and
handed them to me when they got
to school," she says.
"Grandpa liked to go fast," adds
Mary's - daughter Bessie Broome.
Mary was the first member of her
family to attend high school, an
unusual achievement at the time
for a girl from the country.
Growing up on a farm, Mary says
her family always. had enough to
;ood genes,
eat and was :al-
ways warm with
a roof over their
heads. Her fa-
ther made maple
syrup from the
family bush and
they grew pota-
toes and apples.
"We were nev-
er hungry and
we always had
clothes to wear.
There weresome
that didn't," she
says.
Married in
1930 to How-
ard Stevens, the
couple moved to
Sarnia and had
two daughters,
Bessie and Ruth.
Howard deliv-
ered bread by .
truck throughout
the Sarnia area
and Bessie used to
travel with him on his route.
During the "dirty 30s," Mary re-
members that they didn't have
much more than a roof over their
heads and enough food to eat.
"But, we weren't going out shop-
ping all the time..: We only bought
what we needed," she says.
Tragedy struck the family when
Bessie was five and her father died
of pneumonia and her baby sister
died at 13 months the same year.
"I remember my uncle saying it
was the saddest time he could ever
remember," says Bessie.
In 1940, Mary married Angus
Robertson and moved to a farm
near Hensall in Tuckersmith where
they lived for 12 years before mov-
ing to Clinton in 1952.
Back on a farm, Mary worked side
by side at all the farm chores with
her husband, doing milking,barn
chores and even stooking grain.
"Mother worked as hard as any
of her brothers on the farm," says
Bessie.
"I worked hard in my lifetime,"
agrees Mary.
The farmhouse had no electricity
or indoor plumbing during the time
the family lived there.
- lard to carry water -the whole -
•
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Ross W. Ribey Funeral' Director
wwwhitn ; ribe f ne alho e.com
Mary Robertson
time," says Bessie.
Bessie remembers the "wicked"
snowstorms of the 1940s, which
coupled with the fact that Tucker -
smith didn't plow the country roads
at the time, caused some treacher-
ous situations.
In 1943, when Mary needed an
operation at the Seaforth 'hospital,
Angus had to take a team of horses
to the church shed in Chiselhurst
so they drove through Hibbert
Township (which plowed the roads)
to the hospital.
After Angus died in- 1977, Mary
moved to Seaforth in 1979 at age
70 where she got an apartment,
played cards at the Legion and was
active in the Eastern Star.
Asked about the secret of her lon-
gevity, Mary says it's an inherited
trait from other long -living rela-
tives. Of her seven siblings, two
lived into their 90s.
"Years ago, a doctor said to me
that my body is functioning like a
younger person's. It's good genes, I
guess," she says.
Mary now lives at the Seaforth
Manor where staff and residents
celebrated with her on her 100th
birthday.
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