Three women in an Indian Head care home have seen a lot of changes in their time. Roma Inglis, 101, Ann Emerson, 102, and Mary Anaka, 101, have all celebrated New Year’s Day for more than a century.
Inglis fondly remembers dressing up in fancy gowns for New Year’s Eve dances at Hotel Saskatchewan when she was younger.
“We’d sneak little bottles of liquor in and keep it under the table because they didn’t allow drinking in those days,” she laughed.
Inglis said she’s never been a fan of making New Year’s resolutions.
“I never did because you couldn’t keep them,” she said.
Inglis, Emerson and Anaka were born near the beginning of the First World War, before radios were popular in the home and before television had been invented. Lynn Emerson, Ann’s daughter, said the changes her mother lived through were remarkable.
“How hard they had to work, how resourceful they had to be. How they made do with very little,” Lynn said.
Lynn attributed her mother’s longevity largely to healthy habits.
“Nutrition, an inquisitive mind and an open, loving heart,” she said.
Inglis said she didn’t have a secret to living a long life.
“I didn’t smoke and I took a drink once in a while at a party… well, you had to do that if you went to a party,” she said.