Looking forward

At home in Wellington, itching to get back to her garden

From Brighton Beach to Wellington on the Lake, Gene Plummer moves joyfully forward

Gene Plummer has a busy life. It isn’t something she thinks about much— staying active is what she has always done. Even now at the glorious age of 99, Gene has a list of tasks ahead of her. She was firm with the inquiring reporter.

“I can’t meet you on Friday,” said Gene. “I volunteer at the Second Time Around Shop on Fridays.”

She takes her vocations seriously.

Turning 99 isn’t something she thinks much about. More curious about the attention than anything else. Her church threw her a party. The owner of the development in which she lives took her to lunch. Her family gathered round.

Gene tends to look forward more than backward. She is neither sentimental nor particularly reflective. There are things to be done and jobs to be completed.

TO THE BEACH
Just months before she was born in 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo, igniting the war that was to have ended all wars. Before the killing stopped four years later, more than 37 million lives had been lost.

But in the tidy neighbourhood of Brighton Beach in Ottawa South, war in Europe was a long way away. Gene’s dad was newspaperman writing for the Ottawa Citizen, the Ottawa Journal and Reuters. Later he edited and compiled a popular page in the Evening Ottawa Citizen called Old Time Stuff, from 1933 to 1939. He travelled up and down the Ottawa valley and into the Gatineau hills digging for stories about the lives and history of the region.

Ottawa South is a middle-class neighbourhood east of Bank Street, tucked neatly between the Rideau River and its canal of the same name. Her home was just three doors from Brighton Beach—not so much a beach but a long expanse of lawn that merged welcomingly with the untamed river. It was a popular summer destination for the neighbourhood children. Most summer mornings she would pull herself out of bed early, don a bathing suit and gallop toward the water.

One such morning—she was 12 or 13 by now—her mother stopped her at the door with a gentle plea.

“Now dear, wouldn’t it be nice if you had a little robe” urged her mother.

In that instant of self awareness the child became a young woman. Soon there after long white robe was purchased that flowed gracefully with a now-determined gait.

“I no longer ran to the beach,” remembered Gene. “I sauntered.”

A DIFFICULT AGE
Gene went to high school at Glebe Collegiate where she learned office skills such as shorthand and bookkeeping. But when she graduated, Ottawa, and much of the world, was mired in the worst of the Great Depression. There were few jobs and no clerical work whatsoever. Her sister had a job as a hairdresser and soon, Gene too was cutting hair.

One afternoon, while skating at the outdoor rink in a nearby park—she met a handsome young man. George Plummer was apprenticing as a linotype operator. They began to date. But soon George’s apprenticeship was done. He landed a job with the Montreal Star.

For the next four years, he worked in Montreal during the week and came back to Ottawa on weekends.

After a while, George’s mother grew weary of only seeing her son as he dropped on his laundry on Friday and when he picked up his clean clothes on Sunday night.

“So who do you come to visit? Her or me?” She knew well the answer to her own question.

Gene and George at last were married, ending the long distance courtship. They settled in the emerging community of Notre- Dame-de-Grace in Montreal. There, they raised three children. Dale came first. Twelve difficult years passed until at last Bonnie Jean arrived. It would be another six years before David was born.

After the kids grew up, George retired and the Plummers moved back to Ottawa to care for each of their elderly mothers—both of whom lived into their nineties.

Years of smoking was catching up with George, however. While on vacation in Florida one winter—George succumbed to lung cancer. They were just a few months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary.

Two of her children, Bonnie Jean and David, had made lives in British Colombia. Dale and her husband were in Prince Edward County. Her ties to Ottawa were more habit now than family. In the mid-nineties, Wellington on the Lake was still a new development. Gene decided she would move closer to Dale—but would remain independent. She purchased a home in the new retirement community.

She threw herself into the tasks apparent in her new home and community. She transformed her modest backyard into a lush perennial garden. She became better acquainted with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She stayed busy.

Gene considers herself a sensible person. She doesn’t take on more than she can manage. A couple of years ago she conceded that it was time she got some help with the lawn and shovelling the driveway.

“I don’t feel I need it,” says Gene. “It makes me feel a bit guilty to watch someone else do it.”

When she noticed her eyesight was diminished, she decided to sell her car. There was no fuss—no lamentation of lost freedom and independence. The time had simply come that it no longer made sense for her to drive. Besides, there are plenty of neighbours eager and willing to take Gene where she needs to be.

And what of the name Gene? It is neither a nickname that caught on, nor is it a short form of a more traditional name.

She was named after the famed writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter—an immensely popular figure at the turn of the last century. Said to have more than 50 million readers, Stratton-Porter novels and columns were read around the world and translated into 12 languages, including Braille.

Stratton-Porter wrote considerably about a marsh near her Indiana home. Limberlost swamp, she wrote, was a ““treacherous quagmire—filled with every plant, animal and human danger”.

Like her namesake, Gene Plummer has largely charted her own course, undaunted by the challenges and heartaches that wear down others. She has still much to do. Ninety-nine was just another birthday.