Anson Place Care Centre

Hagersville, Ont. Residents 101 Infected residents 71 (as of April 23) Deaths 27 (as of April 23) Infected staff 31 Staff deaths 0

Ruby Mccarroll 1925-March 30, 2020

Ruby Mccarroll was born not long after the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20, but lived long enough to be a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 100 years later.

Mccarroll, 95, was one of more than two dozen residents who died of COVID-19 at the Anson Place Care Centre in Hagersville, south of Brantford in rural southwestern Ontario. She died March 30.

Born Ruby Johnson in 1925, she worked from about the age of 20 as a teacher in the one-room school houses of Haldimand County soon after graduating from teacher training.

“She started out teaching kids not much younger than herself” and went on to teach at a Hagersville public school, said son Mike Mccarroll.

She loved meeting over coffee with friends, many of whom she met as an organist at Hagersville Baptist Church, Hagersville United Church and the Chapel of the Delaware on the nearby Six Nations Reserve. Even if she had to have her coffee break alone, she would pick up the phone and drink it while swapping stories and “gossip” with a friend.

“Ruby loved music, coffee and socializing with friends,” her death notice said. “To celebrate Ruby’s life at this time, we ask that you listen to your favourite music with your favourite drink in hand.”

Mccarroll moved to Anson Place in 2015, where she renewed acquaintances with Waterford farmer Arthur Harekm 95, who died March 16. He was suffering COVID-LIKE symptoms but the diagnosis was never confirmed. Mccarroll died two weeks later.

Mike Mccarroll worried about his family’s inability to hold a proper funeral, but he has found himself in long conversations with others who’ve told him things about his mother he never knew.

“That has given me a perspective I never had,” he said. “It’s been kind of nice.”