Special book to showcase life stories of Cumberland County centenarians

Kathleen Smith recently celebrated her 103rd birthday, which meant a friendly visit from Cumberland Genealogical Society president Barb Reid, who asked her questions about her amazing life.

Reaching the age of 100 is considered a wonderful milestone, but in Nova Scotia's Cumberland County it's book worthy.

The Cumberland Genealogical Society is putting together a special book, which will showcase more than 200 centenarians from the county's history.

Kathleen Smith recently celebrated her 103rd birthday, which meant a friendly visit from the society president Barb Reid, who asked her questions about her amazing life.

“I just kept going, you know, the same thing every day. I loved to do what I was doing,” says Smith.

The society started the special project more than two years ago, collecting the names and stories of people with a Cumberland County connection who lived to be 100 or more.

“People that have lived a hundred years have a story to tell,” says Reid. “Most of them have very interesting stories to tell and to capture those stories and be able to put them in a publication altogether and say that these 250 people all lived in Cumberland County at one time or another.”

The society has created a master list of 252 centenarians, past and present. They've spoken with most of those still living, but it was a little trickier to get the stories of those who had already passed.

“Several of the members got together and they just basically scoured basically all our documentation here. The internet, our obituary files, anything that we have here. There's thousands of pages of paper here and they've just gone through them,” says Reid.

Information on each person is put on an individual page, including anecdotes from surviving relatives or friends. It's been one of the society's more popular projects.

“People have so much to tell us and once they're gone, they're lost and if we can elaborate on them, and make them known to the public, I think it's a great idea,” says Phyllis Perry, society secretary.

As for the age old question about the secret to a long life, the answers seem to be as varied as the people themselves.

“A lot of the people that are included in our book are people that lived in coastal areas,” says Reid. “So I don't know if the fresh sea air is part of the pact that, you know, some of them never drank liquor, some of them never smoked, some, you know, say that it's their religion.”

The society is hoping to have its research work done in the next few months, and the book itself will, hopefully, be available for Christmas.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh