By Robin Van Der Vleuten
At the age of 102, Frances Hore exemplifies beautiful women who enjoy going out in a courtyard and telling stories. Her stories, about her life, validate her strength of character and zest for life. As a young girl, born and raised on Vancouver Island, she aspired to become a nurse. However, during her teen years, she left school and went to work, to help support her struggling mom, younger brother, and sister.
Even so, her spirit was strong. On Monday nights, she went to the dances held for the soldiers during the war. “I liked dancing and going to the dances. I had to help organize the girls to go to that, and it was fun.” At one of these dances, she met her future husband, William Edward, an army soldier. On the weekends, William would hitchhike from Nanaimo, B.C. and come to see her. At the age of 21, she married William.
After farming, in Port Alberni, B.C., for a few years, they moved to Ontario with their two children, June and Myrlene. They bought a cattle farm, in Dunsford, and later had two more children, Harold, and Shirley. On the farm, Frances enjoyed tending to her gardens. In the front of the house was her flower garden which included snapdragons and pansies, as pansies were her mother’s favourite flower. In the back of the house, Frances had her vegetable garden. “I had a little bit of everything in it, even lettuce and onions. I used it all in salads and stews, and then I canned the rest or put it in the freezer.”
During the threshing season, all the farmers would come around and help each other take the crop from their fields and bring it to the barn. The wives would cook a meal and feed the men. Frances’ mother-in-law came over and helped her with the threshing lunch. Everyone loved it, when they had to do the threshing at Frances’ farm, as she would put on the best spreads. They knew she always baked for days and made a lot of pies and food. Francis particularly loved to bake sugar cookies, tea biscuits, and Rollie Pollies.
After the men had eaten and returned to work, Francis and her mother-in-law gathered up all the fruit from the garden and canned them, sometimes making 15 to 20 jars.
When asked if it was hard work, she smiled, stating, “It was something you just did automatically. I was not afraid of hard work, and I worked hard.”
In addition to raising their children and her role on the farm, Frances worked as a Ward Clerk, at the desk of the Ross Memorial Hospital, in Lindsay. She recorded patients’ temperatures on their charts and other vital information, keeping things in order. “I Frances. “I worked there for almost 15 years, and I loved it.” Shortly after that, Frances and William bought a grocery store, up north. Frances enjoyed running the store, sharing, they had everything customers needed. She helped run the store until William’s health declined, and then they sold it and moved to Lindsay.
Frances may not have had a formal education, but she applied what she learned in life to how she raised their children. She told them, if they got knocked down and something bad happened, it was okay to cry but then get back up, dust yourselves off, and get back into life.
Frances, a talented piano player, also saw the value of having music in one's life and urged her children to learn how to play an instrument. Most importantly, Frances valued education and encouraged her children to get the highest education they could.
At 102 years of age, Frances smiled and said, “I have done a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” These wonderful stories of her life experiences prove this has been the case.
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