Jean Calder isn’t letting her age get in the way of her plans for the future.
As the longtime Flin Flonner marked her 90th birthday this week, she was already looking ahead to her next milestone.
“Now I’ve only got 10 years to go, then I’ll be 100 and we’ll have a block party,” Calder said, drawing warm laughter from friends surrounding her in her living room on Tuesday afternoon.
Originally from Holland, Calder’s story was typical of women who came of age during the Second World War. Young lady meets gentleman in uniform, falls in love and moves with him back to Canada once the hostilities have ended.
When she and husband Clarence Calder moved to his native Nipawin, Saskatchewan, in October 1946, he had trouble finding work. He landed a job at HBM&S, now Hudbay, in Flin Flon, where the couple made their home in 1947.
Jean knew very little English when she made the 6,400-km trek to Canada. She picked up the language by carefully listening to conversations. She still has a strong Dutch accent and, when talking to family from Holland, remains proficient in her native tongue.
As was common of the era, she spent her days as a homemaker while Clarence went to work. The couple had two sons, William and Robert Joseph, though the latter child passed away shortly after birth.
Jean was and is a woman of many talents. She was once a professional seamstress, with three diplomas in that field to prove it. She said her mom encouraged her to become a seamstress even though “she couldn’t sew a stitch herself.”
Jean is also quite the artist, as her well-worn sketchbook of scenic views and elegant faces reveals. The detail of the art is impressive, the work of a focused mind that remains razor sharp all these decades later.
“I can remember back to when I was two years old,” she noted, drawing nods of agreement from her friends.
Flin Flon is a community full of people known only by nicknames. This is also true of Jean. Clarence gave her the nickname because he felt that her real name, Adriana, was too long.
Clarence has since passed on, as has son William. Jean’s three siblings, all older brothers, are also gone, though she maintains close contact with family back in her beloved Holland.
“I’m a good Canadian, but I always have a little spot in my heart for Holland,” said Jean, who last visited her home country in 1990.
“I’m going to make one more trip before I die, though. You bet’cha.”
Today Jean stays busy by spending time with friends, listening to Dutch music and watching TV in her black-and-white-photo-lined living room.
So what does she like to watch?
“Good-looking men,” she said to more laughter, as well as weather reports.
How about a good-looking man delivering a weather report? Jean’s favourite is Chris Mei, the energetic and affable Weather Network presenter.
“He looks wonderful in a suit,” she observed.
The advent of television is one of many dramatic advances Jean has witnessed in her lifetime. She was a young child when Canada’s first television signals were beamed out.
When she was born on June 7, 1926, movies were silent, automobiles were a luxury and the earth’s population was nearly four times smaller than it is today.
Asked about differences she has noticed, Jean remarked that things have become more expensive. What hasn’t changed is her zeal for her adopted community.
“I love Flin Flon,” she said.
“The people of Flin Flon are wonderful. I would never move away from here.”
