A Thorold woman is nearing a century as her 99th birthday approaches.
Margaret Timmons has spent the majority of her life in Thorold where she still lives in her childhood home, purchased by her parents in 1935 for $1100 during the depression.
“Of course I love Thorold. I have been here for 97 years!” she exclaimed when Thorold News called.
The love for her home-town awarded her the title of Thorold Senior citizen of the year 2019.
Timmons mainly spent her years in town raising seven children while keeping up with her duties as a parishioner and avid church-goer, regularly contributing through charities, often by way of knitting.
But for a brief time she worked as a telephone operator for Bell Telephones, as the new communications device was being rolled out to the public.
“I can see the board in front of me today. Back then, we considered Welland and Fonthill long-distance calls,” said Timmons.
That was during World War II - another historical time of unprecedented scale.
A memory from that time that has stuck with her was the fate of her first boyfriend, Alexander Muir who at 23 years old got shot down by the Germans while out on mission, serving as a machine gunner in the Royal Canadian Airforce in the war.
“I was just standing in the store, I guess I was out getting groceries when someone came in and told me. It was awfully sad.”
Jim, who later would become her husband also drafted, but as a mechanic in Gander, Newfoundland, loading bombs onto planes that would embark on submarine hunts in the North Atlantic.
So what is the secret to living a active life at 99?
Aside from crediting praying regularly, Timmons stresses eating a healthy diet.
“I became diabetic in the 1980s and watched it carefully. I eat protein, starch and fruit. For breakfast I’ll have cottage cheese, fruit and a piece of toast. And coffee, of course.”
Staples include lots of good protein like chicken or beef, says Timmons.
She would not admit to any vices in an interview with Thorold News, saying that “when you are a church-goer, you just try not to sin.”
Another key to living healthy is to speak your mind, says Timmons - something that she learned to do amidst the civil uprising of the late 1960s.
“I was very shy as a young girl. But that changed as I got older. I think we all learned something from that.”
These days she has no trouble having her say about what she thinks about the Prime Minister - she’s not a fan - or the Chinese governments handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the decades she has witnessed several historical events – and she remembers apartheid and the civil rights movement of 1968.
“I prayed about it. That is what I do today too with those protests going on in the states. Good people are protesting something that is and was terribly wrong.”
However, riots can not be the way forward, adds the soon-to-be 99-year-old.
“Those who break glass and plunder… It is not right, and I think most people do not approve of that.”
