Margaret, 95 yrs

“I’ve seen a lot of people and have lived in a lot of places. One of the biggest decisions I’ve made was marrying my husband and willing to go halfway across the world to Taiwan in 1954, a month after we were married, and living the life of a minister’s wife. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's not easy. You must be very careful what you say and what you do.

It was interesting living in Taiwan. Learning a new language and having children there and not being able to talk to some of the locals was difficult, but we gradually got used to a new beginning. We learned to speak Mandarin and my husband went on to learn Hakka. And then, of course, living through typhoons was another experience. There were several. We had quite a big one in about 1958-59, where at the time, we lived in a Japanese style home. The water came down, broke our back wall, came through our house, took the fish out of our little fishpond. I would have to put a plank across from the top step of the living room to the kitchen so I could get food for the kids.

I think the one thing that I felt was a satisfaction was going up into the mountains in Taiwan and teaching the women how to use powdered milk that was being sent as a relief indicator. They didn't know how to use it, and they were tending to feed their pigs with it. But we were teaching them how to use it to make a pudding to feed their children instead.

From all my travels, I learned that you could adapt to anything. You know, going up into the mountains was one thing, but then traveling home to Canada with three children, two of them in diapers at least part of the time was another. The things you get to eat in Taiwan are different. My mom used to send us care packages with small jars of raspberry jam. She would pack the jams with raisins, as we couldn't get raisins in Taiwan. If we wanted things like coffee, we had to go to Hong Kong.

Being a woman and a mom gave me a broader perspective of the world. I’m very content with myself. I’ve had a good life. I wouldn’t change it for anything. My parents were very kind. I enjoyed taking care of my children. The role of what’s expected of a woman has certainty changed. You miss a lot of the children's lives nowadays. And they miss a lot of their mothers and fathers. It’s sad but that’s the way life goes, especially with the state of the economy now.

I think people are too busy to socialize. Inflation is so high that people don’t have a choice but to put themselves first. But also, there’s technology – people spend too much time on their screens, as opposed to talking to one another. When I grew up, there was nothing, not even a movie theatre. You just had to make your own fun.

My husband passed away, and I’ve never lived alone until now. I didn’t expect to be alone. You have to re-learn, I guess, how to live. None of my family are close by. I don’t want to move closer to one of my children because if I move closer to one, I’d be farther from the rest. But I talk to my kids frequently. And sometimes we have social activities at my apartment complex – movie night, sewing, bingo, dinners. You can’t change everything. You have to live with it.

I’m happy with the way my life turned out. I’ve done a fair bit of travelling. My granddaughter keeps providing me with crocheting stuff to do. I want to keep my health relatively good. Sometimes my kids suggest I should go into a retirement home, but not yet. I can still move around, and I love to bake. My daughter has a huge garden, and she makes homemade mincemeat. And so, every once in a while, I bake mincemeat tart or brownies or muffins.”