MARY’S ABOUT TO TURN 106. WISH HER A HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Family sending COVID-19 survivor a card for every year she brought joy, love to others
Through two World Wars, the Great Depression and a bout with COVID-19, Mary Peel has brought joy, warmth and love to the lives of others. Now, for her upcoming 106th birthday, her family is asking others around the world to return the favour and send her cards and messages of support to “remind her that the community is behind her.”
For the first time in over a century, Mary Peel isn’t going to have a birthday party. She won’t be visited by some of her hundreds of friends and family dotted all over the globe, dance the Charleston with them or have everyone listen to her favourite records. If another COVID-19 outbreak happens, she might not even get to leave her room.
When Mary turns 106 Wednesday, it’ll be in Nisbet Lodge, the Christian long-term care home where she’s lived since 2019.
According to family, the past year has been one of the loneliest and most challenging in her life, which was often marred by poverty and spanned both World Wars, as well as the Great Depression.
This was only worsened when Mary tested positive for COVID-19 in June.
“I just burst into tears, on the floor, crying when I got the call,” said granddaughter Victoria Newson.
“This is it; she’s going to be gone and I can’t get to her. I can’t be with her.”
When doctors told Newson’s mother, Carla Mouradian, about the positive test, they were clear that chances of survival would be low for someone of such an advanced age.
“I said, ‘You don’t know my mom, she’ll get through it.’ ”
Newson was one of the first people to find out her grandmother survived COVID-19 after testing negative in July.
“Everyone had been asking about her since they heard about the diagnosis,” she said. “I was texting cousins all over the world I don’t talk ever to through tears of joy.”
Newson and Carla knew they couldn’t allow circumstance to rob Mary of a celebration of her life, especially after her brush with death at the hands of COVID-19.
They hatched a plan.
For each year Mary brought joy, love and warmth to the lives of others, she would receive a card in the mail.
One-hundred-and-six cards in all.
“She keeps all the cards she’s ever gotten,” said Newson.
“She loves them. She’ll sit in her room and re-read them all the time. We thought this would be the perfect way to remind her that the community is behind her.”
Younger family members took to social media to spread the word.
Nisbet Lodge will quarantine letters it receives from her loved ones and pass them on to Mary throughout the week, the family says.
Carla and Newson said nearly every memory they have of Mary is coloured by her laughter. Newson called her bubbly, pious and indiscriminately talkative. They said even in the throes of illness, she was true to her own personal motto: “Take time to laugh, it’s music to the soul.”
They also revere Mary’s perseverance. She’s a fighter who never backed down from a challenge and worked hard her whole life, they say.
Born Mary Alice Garabedian in St. Catharines, Ont., on March 3, 1915. Mary had to quit school and start working at 11, sweeping floors and picking fruit.
Her father, Boghus Garabedian, had developed rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to work and her mother, Myrtle Mary Hunt, returned to England for reasons unknown.
At 13, Mary took a job at a canning factory. Three years later, she wound up at a zipper factory, where she was employed until her marriage to Mourad Mouradian in 1936, which lasted until his death of lung cancer in1977. They always called each other “honey,” and were deeply in love, by all accounts.
“She doesn’t let things bother her. Even right now she’s got a smile on her face.”
CARLA MOURADIAN ABOUT HER MOTHER, MARY PEEL
Mary wasn’t off work long. Just a few years later she was almost blinded while working at Thompson Products cutting rust off pipes when pipe shrapnel flew into her eye.
In 1949, she and Mouradian started a dry-cleaning business. That’s where Carla said Mary shook off the shyness that permeated her early life and grew into the vibrant people-person she is today.
In 1980, she married Art Peel. They were together until his death from bowel cancer in 1994.
Carla said she thinks the reason for her mother’s longevity is her commitment to facing problems head-on and smiling through it all.
“She doesn’t let things bother her,” she said. “Even right now she’s got a smile on her face.” Mary is deeply religious. “She prays about everything. She trusts God in everything; whatever happens, happens,” said Carla.
“She knows she’s going to heaven, so she isn’t worried.”
Mary, herself, said she isn’t all too surprised to still be among us, virus or not. She’s faced adversity many times before and always made it out alive, she said.
That attitude is reflected in what she considers the ideal birthday message for her, a letter that says:
“Well, you’ve made it and you’re doing good, hooray!” If you would like to send your birthday wishes to Mary, you can send a card to Mary Peel c/o The Toronto Star,
Fifth Floor Editorial, One Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E6