by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
WHITEWATER REGION (Cobden) – On a snowy Thursday, February 5, 1948, Olive Miller and Mansel Hill said ‘I do’ in St. Paul’s Parish Hall with Eileen Miller as maid of honour and Clarence McBride as best man.
They went to a dinner at Edith Gould’s home in Cobden and the next day took the train to Ottawa to go to a movie.
A week later, his parents hosted a reception for them in the old Memorial Hall.
Over the next seven decades, the couple lived in four different homes and have four children – Richard, Don, Beverly and Nancy — and now have 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Now residing at Caressant Care Retirement Home in Cobden, Olive gets to push Mansel around, as he is now confined to a wheelchair. But, that wasn’t always the case.
“Marriage is give and take,” Olive said, with Mansel adding, “Don’t lose your temper and do what the woman says.”
Olive added, “Talk things out” while Mansel said, “When you fight, take a walk through the bush.” In his soft laughter, he added, “I had to stop doing that because people thought we were fighting all the time.”
The couple remembered years gone by, sometimes laughing, sometimes serious.
They first met at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Cobden after Olive and her family moved from Lake Dore to Cobden when she was 19 years old. They began courting and then married in the hall, because the church was undergoing renovations.
Their first home was in Cobden, for a year, and then it was the Hill family farm on what is now known as Mansel Hill Road.
“It’s quite a thing to have a road named after you,” he said.
Why him?
“Because he was the Hill living on the road at the time,” Olive recalled, noting his great-grandfather started the farm.
In 1949, the couple moved to the Hill family farm, where they operated a mixed operation on 200 acres. They had dairy, beef, chickens and crops, and Olive had large gardens.
“I enjoyed gardening and flowers,” Olive said. “I always had big gardens.”
While Olive worked on the farm, Mansel took off-farm jobs as well, such as driving school bus for Gordon Duncan; caretaker for 19 years of the Cobden Cemetery and drove truck for the creamery.
When the couple felt they were “too old to farm” in 2003, they moved to a house on Gould Street in Cobden. They sold the farm to Bill Craig, who has since torn down the original home and rebuilt a beautiful wooden home.
Thirteen years later, June 2016, they moved to a room at Caressant Care, as Mansel is now confined to a wheelchair due to his bad knees.
They also recalled three scary moments in time.
Mansel, Russell Purcell and son Jack, and Clarence McBride, were crossing Muskrat Lake on December 4, 1953 in a small boat to get to a woodlot.
“A big wave swamped the boat and we all went into the water,” Mansel recalled.
Hearing their shouts out on the water, Allan Eckford and Murray Buckwald rescued them.
“I thought I was a goner,” Mansel said. “I went down three times.”
Laughing, Mansel recalled that while they were being rescued, someone called a friend and asked if they had any rum so the men could get warmed quickly.
“By the time we got rescued, there were four bottles of rum waiting for us,” he said.
However, while they were rescued, not all of them were saved, as Russell drowned.
In May 1999, Mansel had open heart surgery and on January 11, 2016, he fell and broke his hip while checking his vehicle over while out and about in Cobden.
There were ups and downs throughout their 70 years of marriage, they both admit. They were busy with their four children, and with no electricity or running water, it was no easy task.
And, years ago, farming life wasn’t like it is now, she said.
“The farmers got together,” she said. “There were thrashing bees and sawing bees.
“The neighbours got together about seven times a year. Now you don’t know who your neighbour is.”
When electricity came, Olive was a happy person, especially with four children. Life was also a little easier with running water and indoor plumbing, including a bathroom, she added.
Today, the happy couple keep busy with a variety of activities provided at Caressant Care Retirement Home, such as games, exercise classes, bus trips, chapel, musical afternoons, etc.
They also keep busy doing word puzzles – each having their own large-print book – and watching a few programs on television, like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.
Olive also enjoys knitting.
“I donated 25 pairs of mittens and toques to the food bank last year,” she recalled.
She’s also made sweaters and cardigans, mittens, toques and scarves for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. However, she admitted, it’s only mittens, as she finds it harder to knit the more intricate items.
“If I have yarn, I will knit,” she said with a laugh.
“The days pass quickly,” Olive said.
Olive is now 95, and Mansel won’t reach that age until April 21.
“I never thought I’d see 95 and be walking around,” Olive said. “We have our health and our minds.”
While many people balk at moving to a retirement home, Olive said, “We are not sorry we moved here.”
