She is hard of hearing now and sleeps most of the day but Coquitlam's Gertrude "Trudy" Marshall was in fine form last week as she marked her 110th year.
The Tri-Cities' eldest living resident - and great grandmother of eight - celebrated her special occasion at the Dufferin Care Centre on Oct. 14 with family and friends. Daughter Betty Inglis said Mayor Richard Stewart even stopped by for a chat as Marshall received written greetings from the Queen, Governor General, Lt. Governor and federal and provincial politicians.
Marshall was featured in The Tri-City News in 2007 when she was 104 as part of an article about centenarians. Then, as with all of her guests, Marshall asked for an autograph for her guest book as a way to keep track of her visitors.
Marshall has always been surrounded by good company.
Born Gertrude Harlow Banks in her grandparents' home on Oct. 16, 190s in Caledonia, N.S., Marshall was the second eldest in a family of seven girls and a boy, Inglis said.
Her father was the owner, publisher and editor of the Gold Hunter weekly newspaper and she set type by hand after school. Her family was the first in town to get electricity.
Marshall finished Grade 12 and wrote her teacher exams but, in 1923, at the age of 20, she travelled to New Jersey to train as a nurse. She worked in New Jersey, Boston and New York before moving home to care for her ailing mother. She settled in Halifax, where she was employed with the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) until she married Charles Moss in 1934.
The couple had two children - Charles and Elizabeth - and when Moss died from a heart attack in 1949, Marshall, her kids, her mother and her two sisters moved to West Vancouver; the single parent worked for the VON, St. Paul's Hospital and the old children's hospital.
After Marshall retired in 1967, she flew to Halifax to look after a sick sister and, there, she reconnected with Dr. Arthur Marshall, a beau from the 1930s. They married in 1969 and Marshall returned to Halifax permanently. The pair travelled the world.
When her husband died in 1983, Marshall came back to the west coast a few years later to live with Inglis. "In her 90's, she took watercolour painting lessons, took up crewel needlepoint - which she continued to do until she was over 100 - crocheted afghans, sewed clothes by hand for her great grandchildren and did a lot of reading," Inglis said. "She loved to bake and entertain."
And for her 100th birthday, the family treated Marshall to a Vancouver Canucks game, where the Queen dropped the hockey puck for a ceremonial face-off. It was Marshall's first live NHL game and captain Trevor Linden autographed a picture for her.
In the 2007 News article, Marshall was asked the secret of her longevity. She attributed her good health to not smoking and to eating garden vegetables, chicken and home-cooked meals. She also danced, skated, walked and swam. "I had to be active," she said then. "My nursing made me active and I was part of a large family."
