‘It’s short when you look back on it’
Phyllis Cooper of St. John’s turns 100
Phyllis Cooper is modest and didn’t want a big splash for her 100th birthday, but she donned a party tiara and watched with a glowing smile as a small gathering of friends and family sang “Happy Birthday” outside her Caribou Manor window in St. John’s Wednesday.
Her son, Terry, was there and her other son, Randy, chimed in via Facetime from Nova Scotia.
“It’s short, when you look back on it,” Phyllis told The Telegram about her 100-year life so far.
“You are never too old for bubbles,” sang out her 11-year-old great-grandson, Konnor, as a machine wafted a stream of bubbles past her window.
“Now you are a superstar,” said her granddaughter, Faythe.
“One-hundred — that’s pretty impressive. I tell you,” said Virginia Waters-pleasantville MHA Bernard Davis, who teased Phyllis about how there would have been a big dance for her birthday, if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the pandemic was not on, Phyllis said, she would have wanted to go out to Swiss Chalet with her family.
“She didn’t want none of this at all,” said her younger sister, Ruth Goodland, who lives with Phyllis in the Pleasantville apartment. “She just wanted a cake with 100 on it and her picture taken, that was it.”
Soft-spoken Phyllis was indeed humble about sharing her life stories with The Telegram. She said she grew up, got married, had kids and that was pretty much it.
When asked about her job at the Newfoundland Margarine Co., where she met her late husband, Jack, she spoke of the necessity of the times.
“You had to keep things going,” she said. “I wasn’t going on welfare. I had to get to work.”
Her job was to make boxes and fill them with margarine, on a fast-moving assembly line.
Phyllis liked the work, but stayed home when her boys were small. When they were in their teens, she went back to work making donuts and other goodies at the former Mammy’s Bakery on Water Street in downtown St. John’s, from where she retired, Randy said.
Asked about the secret of a long life, Phyllis shrugged.
“I can’t think of anything,” she said.
Her sons said she never smoked or drank.
“She always loved to walk. She’d walk anywhere,” said Terry.
“She is a very modest person. Nothing fazes her,” Randy said in a telephone interview.
“I keep telling her she has the heart of an Olympic athlete to keep going this long.”
Phyllis and Ruth, younger by 11 years, were the children of First World War veteran George Gullliver, who was wounded three times, including at Beaumont Hamel, and his Scottish war bride, Jean.
Growing up, they lived on Hamilton Avenue and Beaumont Avenue before moving to a brand new house on Smith Avenue.
It’s just Phyllis, Ruth and brother Richard, in Ontario, who are left of seven siblings.
Randy said Phyllis raised her sons on delicious comfort food like pea soup and macaroni and cheese goulash. She taught by example.
“She never spoke poorly of anyone. I kind of hope myself and Terry are like that,” said
Randy, who is retired from information management with the provincial government.
Randy said his mother would take 14 or 15 kids from the Balsam Street neighbourhood blueberry picking on the Southside Road, to the old Bowring Park swimming hole and to Manuels River, gathering them all on the Fleetline Bus on Water Street, as neither she or her husband drove.
Phylllis didn’t swim, but would sit with a book on the bank.
Her husband died in 1995, and they lost their only daughter, Faith Jean Ruth, at age six.
Both Terry, a plumber, and Randy used the same words, in separate conversations, to describe their mother — awesome and fantastic.
Maxine, Randy’s wife, first met Phyllis 50 years ago when she was a teenager.
“She accepted me in the family that day,” Maxine said on the phone.
“She is the most beautiful person you would ever want to meet. … She is a darling, my dear.”
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and a bout of winter flu, Maxine said, Phyllis and Ruth went to the mall twice a week on the community bus, and she played bingo.
When asked what she wanted for Mother’s Day and her birthday, Phyllis had requested Crossword scratch tickets from Nova Scotia, as they can’t be purchased here.
Though Randy and Maxine would like to be here for the special day, they were in Nova Scotia with family since last fall and had made the decision to stay there during the lockdown. He said he was grateful to the Caribou Manor for the precautions it has taken for residents.
Since the restrictions began, they regularly Facetime with Faythe from outside Phyllis and Ruth’s apartment window.
Faythe is particularly close to her grandmother, as she is the only granddaughter — there are three grandsons as well, and Phyllis has two other great-grandchildren, Willow, 2, and Ella, 6.
“When I was younger we would have sleepovers and we’d bake together,” Faythe said.
Randy said they’d been planning a major event, prior to the pandemic, but his mother wasn’t keen.
“COVID-19 fell in mother’s lap, not having a big thing,” Randy said.
“She never did like a big party.”