Kartar makes six
West Cape woman becomes great-great-great-grandmother
Tish Lidstone said she expressed one wish when she learned her great-great-grandson, Morgan Wallace, was going to be a father.
“All I said when they told me Morgan was going to have a baby was, ‘Oh, God, just let me live that long,’” recalls the 92-year-old West Cape resident. She did, and on Saturday she welcomed one-week-old Kartar Wallace into her West Cape home for his first visit.
“It started here pretty nearly 72 years ago, in this house, and I’ve been in this house ever since,” said Lidstone.
It is where she and her late husband, Keith, raised five children, and it’s where she met Kartar the little boy who has made her a great-great-greatgrandmother. In fact, all six generations gathered for the rare milestone event.
Kartar’s great-grandmother, Janice Annand, said as far as she can determine, her grandmother might very well be one of only two great-great-greatgrandparents in all of Canada.
“I didn’t know it was as big of a deal as it is,” remarked the new dad.
“I don’t think it really dawns on you that you’re going to live that long, and it just seems like yesterday he was like that,” said Lidstone, pointing to her 17-year-old great-great-grandson and then his infant son.
Close by are Morgan’s girlfriend, Ashley Banks, and their contented son, Kartar. Mom said she was pleased to learn of the generation span. Kartar makes three generations on her mother’s side and four on her father’s side. From Lidstone’s four surviving children, she has 19 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren, four great-greatgrandchildren and Kartar as her first great-great-greatgrandchild.
She keeps them all straight in a scribbler and buys Christmas gifts for them all.
“I can’t see that happening again,” Lidstone said of the likelihood of having more greatgreat-great-grandchildren as her other three great-greats are younger.
It’s easy for the six generations to visit back and forth. “Gram, Gramma and mom all live here within walking distance, really,” said Sherri-Lynn Wallace, who became a grandmother with Kartar’s arrival.
The fourth, fifth and sixth generations all live just 15 minutes away, in O’Leary.