CARLYLE - Moose Mountain Lodge in Carlyle had a resident celebrate her 106th birthday on Nov. 18.
Elsie Cameron, born in 1915, turned 106 and the Observer visited with both Elsie and her niece, Shirley McCarron. McCarron provided some background.
“My aunt was born in 1915 in Isley, Alberta. Elsie had six siblings, all boys. Her brothers would brag that there were six boys and every one of them had a sister. They thought it was really funny when people would think that their parents, Mary and Lynden Campbell, had 12 children. Her parents and all seven kids moved back to the Carlyle area in the 1920s when Elsie was a young girl.
“Elsie married Eion Cameron in 1939. They had two children, my first cousins, Ken and Maryline. Elsie lived in her own house until the ripe old age of 96 or 97, at which time the family sold her home. She moved to Moose Mountain Lodge on June 18, 2015.
“Elsie never had a driver’s licence or had any desire to drive for that matter. But she loved to travel to see her children and grandchildren. She would hire someone to drive her to the airport from Carlyle to Regina and thought nothing of boarding a plane all by herself even when she was in her nineties.
“When Elsie lived in her own home she would walk downtown every day to pick up her mail or some groceries. She loves keeping active playing cards. She continues to play even after moving into the lodge and can beat anyone at cribbage, smiling as she did. Elsie loves to dress impeccably, making sure that all her clothes match. She gets up in the morning and puts on her makeup.
“Elsie always makes sure her hair is perfectly in place before she lets you take her picture. She has been known to make you delete a picture if she thinks she doesn’t look good and make you do it all over again.”
“For many years, if you visited the lodge, you would spot Elsie walking around, always carrying her purse. She fell one day and badly bruised her face. The lodge gave her a walker but she had a real dislike for it and didn’t think that she needed it. When she was 105, she fell and broke her hip during the lockdown. She travelled by ambulance to Regina for a complete hip replacement and returned home just a few days later.”
“During her childhood, Elsie and her brothers attended Robinson School. They drove by horse and buggy in the summer and a cutter in the winter. When they were kids, Carlyle had an annual fair. Their father would give each of them 25 cents. Sometimes their uncle would come to visit and gave them another quarter. They would go to the fair thinking they were rich. Back in the day, three gallons of gas cost a dollar. Quite a change from today.”
On her birthday, she was alert, prim, and proper, and of course without a hair out of place.
