A Life of Love, Resilience, and Gratitude

In early July, I received an email inviting me to write about the life experiences of a local senior. I accepted with enthusiasm and, a few weeks later, learned that I would be meeting Elizabeth Vatcher, a 99-year-old resident of Saint Brigid’s Home.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, only that Elizabeth had lived nearly a century and I would help share her story. Over three visits in August, I came to know a woman shaped by love, sacrifice, resilience, and gratitude.

Elizabeth welcomed me warmly. She told me she was named after her grandmother, and that her middle name, Mary, was passed down from her mother. She was born in 1926 in the paper-mill town of Kenogami (now part of Saguenay), the second of eight children.

The streets she grew up on, Cabot and Price, were gravel roads back then. She remembers playing marbles in the dirt with her friends. Since her family didn’t own a car, she walked everywhere. The neighbourhood was mostly English-speaking, and she attended Saint Andrew’s United Church and the local English Protestant school.

“I had to leave school at age ten,” she told me. “I never finished Grade 5. I had to stay home and help my mother look after my younger siblings. I had to make sure they had clean clothes and got their feet washed every night.”

There was no bathtub or shower in Elizabeth’s childhood home. The family used a galvanized metal basin for bathing—just large enough for the younger children to sit in, one at a time, with their legs crossed. For the older ones, it was a two-step process. “You’d sit in it with your legs hanging out, get your top washed first, then sit on a little wooden chair to wash the rest.”

Later, she fell in love with Wilfrid, a French-speaking Catholic who lived nearby and attended the local French Catholic school. Elizabeth was a Protestant, though, and in 1940s Québec, that difference mattered.

“I used to play with his sisters,” she recalled. “When we were all just kids having fun, religion wasn’t an issue. But when he and I wanted to get married, it became one. That’s the way it was in those days.”

Elizabeth chose to convert to Catholicism so she could marry Wilfrid. “I had to read from Le catéchisme and learn everything on my own,” she said. “I went to the priest’s office at the presbytery. He would question me on my readings, and I’d answer. It took several months.”

Her parents respected her decision. “They understood that I was in love,” she said. “Wilfrid was a gentleman. He was clean, respectful, hardly smoked, never drank, and he always helped people.”

They married on November 10, 1945 at the Couvent Sainte-Famille in Kenogami. Soon after, they moved to Montréal, where Wilfrid worked as a welder on naval ships. They rented a small apartment in the east end. “It had no refrigerator or icebox,” she recalled. “I missed everybody from Kenogami. I was homesick.”

They returned to Kenogami about two years later. Wilfrid resumed his job at Alcan, where he had worked previously, and remained there until his retirement. All seven of their children were born and raised in Kenogami-Jonquière. Elizabeth remembers how, after a string of five daughters, “the whole town was praying for me to have a boy.” She eventually had two sons. “People used to come up to me on the street and congratulate me.”

She spoke fondly of the simple pleasures of life back then: cross-country skiing with other young mothers after the children were asleep, sliding at the local ski hill, shopping at Gagnon Frères. Eventually, the family moved to nearby Arvida (now part of Saguenay) and settled into a one-story house that Wilfrid helped build.

“For twenty years, we never missed a payment on the house,” she told me, smiling. She described the day the final notice arrived in the mail: “When we finally paid it off, everyone in the family danced around in the kitchen and celebrated. That was one of the happiest days of my life.”

On my second visit, I showed Elizabeth some old video footage of Kenogami in the 1960s that I had found online. One scene sparked recognition: “That looks like my mother walking!” she said, watching a woman pass by a department store window. She talked about the churches, the corner stores, the Collège du Sacré-Cœur, and the ski centre. She remembered it all.

On my third visit, I brought her a book I had managed to track down: The History of the English Community at Kenogami, Quebec: With an Emphasis on the Period 1912–1952. As we flipped through its pages, her voice lit up with familiarity: “He used to live across the street from us… I went to school with her… That was my first-grade teacher, Miss Black.” We found a photograph of her eldest brother, Tommy, taken on his wedding day in 1945, another of her cousin John, captured in a graduating class photo from 1946. On the headstone listing for the Protestant Kenogami Cemetery, we found the names of her parents, James Vatcher and Mary Mansbridge, who passed away in 1957 and 1979.

When I asked Elizabeth about the people who have had the biggest impact on her life, she replied, “my children.”

“All of them went to English school, but they also spoke French,” she said. “I wanted them to do something and become something.” She smiled as she spoke of her daughter Hélène, who worked for Alcan and joined the company choir. “She was so proud of that.”

When I asked Elizabeth what she was proudest of, she answered: “That I raised a family and kept the house going, most of the time by myself. My husband worked a lot.”

She has lived long enough to see her family grow across five generations: 17 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, and even 2 great-great-grandchildren.

But she has also known heartbreaking loss. In a three-year period, she lost two daughters and a son. Her husband, Wilfrid, passed away in 1965. Of her seven siblings, only two remain: Allan, now 82, and Hilda, 89. She showed me a photo of her late sister, Beatrice. “She was so close to our family and so good to my girls when they were growing up.”

I asked how she endured such grief. She explained how there would be three days of mourning at the funeral home, where friends and family gathered. “And then you go home. You have to live through your grief.”

Still, she remains grateful. “When you’ve had so many bad days and trials, you appreciate the nice ones more,” she said.

Even now, she finds joy in life’s smallest gestures: a dish of cherries her daughter Anne brought her recently, or the birthday card that arrives on time every year from her daughter Jane. “It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, she always gets it to me on time.”

She told me it makes her happy when her children bring up memories from long ago. “Remember, Mom…?” they ask. And she does. “Those are the best moments,” she said.

As I wrapped up our final visit, I asked Elizabeth what she’s thankful for today.

“That I’m still alive,” she said.

After a pause, she added, “I know I’m not the best at this, but I try to remember as much as I can.”

Then she asked, “Do you think my story is worthwhile?”

“Of course it is,” I replied. “You’ve lived through nearly a century of change—so much life, so much history. It deserves to be shared.”

“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said.

Author’s Note

It was an honour to spend time with Elizabeth and hear her story firsthand. Over the course of just a few short visits, I was struck by her strength, humility, and ability to find joy in life’s simplest moments. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help share her voice. Her story reminds us that the meaning of our lives is found in our connections with other people, and that even in the face of grief and loss, gratitude can endure.

Elizabeth passed away at Saint Brigid’s Home on September 2nd, 2025.