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Mime Westcott, A Supercentenarian, Looks Back at
Mime Westcott A Supercentenarian, Looks Back at 110 Years
Rae Westcott, son of Mime
110th Birthday, Manitoba Retired Teachers flower bouquet gift
On January 10, I became a Supercentenarian, 110 years old. There are thirteen of us here in Canada claiming such a title. A saucy facebook post from a grandson read “Happy Birthday to a Two-Champagne Grandma.” For those of you like me who are unsophisticated in current social customs, a champagne birthday is when you turn the same age as the day you were born.
I don’t feel old and some say I don’t look this old. Although my body is frail (I don’t trust my legs to go too far without the walker), I have no diseases and take no prescription medications. Only daily Vitamin D with apple cider vinegar and honey, when I remember. Researchers at the New England Centenarian Study, a long-term research project at the Boston Medical Centre say that I, and others like me, are winners of the genetic lottery. Many centenarians have clusters of long-lived relatives. These scientists have been following me and some of my siblings for a dozen years or so. Apparently our healthy habits and positive attitudes have taken us only so far toward this longevity. What we have is a combination of protective genes that help us stay mentally intact, function independently, and sidestep the worst aspects of life-threatening diseases. We have fewer of the genes that contribute to major diseases - we generally don’t get sick.
Born smack in the middle of eleven children, I’m the only one left now. Two other long-livers in my family were older sisters, both having been teachers, lived beyond a century to the ages of 105 and 107. My siblings and I were born from1907 to 1922, children of “Tillie” McNaughton and Stephen Casselman, the first nine of us delivered on the family farm at Lauder, once a thriving town northeast of Deloraine in southwestern Manitoba. Neighbours would ask Steve why he didn’t try for a dozen. With the history of multiple births in Mother’s family, “we wouldn’t want thirteen” came his response.
This was at the time of the great prairie inmigration, an opportunity for folks who dreamt of freedom, autonomy, prosperity and a better life for their children. The McNaughton and Casselman families were part of these million plus settlers arriving in Western Canada from Central Europe, British Isles, America and Central Canada. As
young singles, both Tillie and Steve came west from english speaking Ontario to already established family in order to find a homestead and ultimately bring other relatives. Settlers brought their ideas, social customs, and prejudices with them. One
of the older Casselman girls planned to marry a boy from an American family who had come to a Saskatchewan homestead by way of the 1872 Dominion Land Act. A newspaper executive uncle from Winnipeg on hearing of this blossoming relationship was heard to say “Why would she want to marry that foreigner.” The ancestors of his Casselman wife came to Canada from America as loyalists in 1789. We assumed that family history would make this choice acceptable.
My family stories are typical of those who migrated west, of hardship and failures, triumphs and loss, of a life on the land. The Casselman two and half sections, although well larger than the quarter section granted to the earliest settlers by the Land Act, was on the edge of the fertile prairie plain and was mostly bush and sand. Many loads of fire wood were sold to neighbouring farmers whose lands were on bald prairie. This source of income along with Dad’s skill at buying and breaking horses kept us in the provisions not grown or raised on our farm. Early memories are of returning WWI soldiers and the way we avoided the Spanish Flu virus by holding a eucalyptus soaked hanky over our nose and mouth as we passed by the house on the edge of town where an infected woman lived. I don’t remember many in our community becoming ill in that pandemic. School was not shut down. It’s likely our isolated town avoided the spread seen in towns and cities on the major rail lines.
I lived a rural farm life for my first 45 years leaving only to complete a grade twelve year in Souris, and then part of 1929 in Winnipeg for Normal School. Nurtured by life on the land, I remember the excitement of the return of the mallards, snow and Canada geese, wild tiger lilies, chokecherry branches bending under the weight of their fruit, searching for blueberry bushes and for the wild strawberries and raspberries hiding in the poplar bluffs.
Like many who lived and worked through the Great Depression, I was taught a never-to-beforgotten lesson of economic caution and frugality. I’m unable to throw anything away believing that I’d be darn glad to have it if hard times come again. I’m assured when I see this attitude has been passed to
On the steps of the boarding house in Winnipeg, at Normal School - 1929
my children, however, afraid these lessons may be forgotten by subsequent generations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought restrictions on household mixing and protocols. The personal care home where I live doesn’t allow me to travel out and restricts visitors, but the isolation has not impeded my looking back on life. My memory is of the lilac hedgerows in the fields, lilac shrubs in town yards blooming in every shade from deep purple to white, their unique scent filling the air, and seeing the first crocus, a sure sign that winter is almost gone. At the time of less restrictions last fall I did make a trip to the country. The drive through the countryside now tells of a land less and less charming. Lauder, the once thriving town on a railway branch line, has only a handful of houses. Nearby are a few dilapidated and empty farmsteads, most others having been bulldozed, burnt or buried. When I noticed skylines missing the wooden elevator, it reminded of the dwindling success of some small prairie towns. It was sad to see the new replacement bridge in Souris now more a sturdy suspension bridge rather than the swinging one I remember crossing daily to school.
The teaching experience changed greatly from my first post until retirement in 1976. After Normal School in 1929, I’m sure I sent out two hundred applications, with no reply. Eventually, a family friend with a School Board connection in the far Next page →
