It’s hard to believe that seven weeks have gone by since my self-imposed isolation began. After listening to the many calls, across the country and the world, from those who want to hit the streets, abandoning all semblance of concern as to what might result from breaking everything wide open, it was really a pleasure to speak with a lady who is making the best of a bad situation.
When COVID-19 hit, Marie Urquhart had been well settled in Williston House, an assisted-living home-away-from-home on Churchill Drive in Sydney, where she has been a resident for 2 and 1/2 years. She credits administrators Cheryl Deveaux and Darren MacNeil for informing residents as to the nature of the virus and the steps that had to be taken to ensure it wouldn’t affect them. So far, Marie says, everything they could possibly do to make residents feel safe and secure has been done.
Marie Urqhart, about to head out on her daily walk.
Breakfast and dinner are delivered to their doors each day, from Mise En Place, the dining room in Rideout House, the second residence that, like Williston House, is an adjunct to The Cove nursing home. Temperatures are taken daily, and thanks to cleaning staff, disinfecting is also a daily routine. Marie can even enjoy having another resident as a dinner guest, although it’s done with social distancing, which might be funny — one person sitting just outside her open door while she sits inside — but works (and she has high praise for the food).
She makes her own supper in her small but well-appointed kitchen, where she continues to cook and bake thanks to son Keith, who drops off groceries when the need arises. Masked residents may get together in the lobby in small groups, obeying the six-foot rule but having an opportunity to chat, keeping in touch, although not literally.
Marie isn’t online, but faithfully watches the updates from Premier McNeil and Dr. Strang as well as Prime Minister Trudeau on television. I confessed to being quite surprised at the lack of internet connectivity, but Marie was quick to assert that she makes wonderful use of her phone!
At 89, Marie looks back at a full life that included raising three sons, Richard, Jamey and Keith, with her late husband, Roy, holding down a full-time job with Nova Scotia Power and conducting exercise classes in her “spare” time.
Exercise was always an important part of her life, to the point where she spent a week in Toronto each year for five years to become a certified fitness trainer, specializing in fitness for seniors. Urquhart taught at the YMCA , branching out to many other venues around the area as the numbers of those wishing to participate in the exercise classes grew.
Having begun Tai Chi classes in Westmount three years ago, (something she continued to do once a week until COVID-19 put an end to it) and finding that “it helps your balance as well as your mind,” she has added it to her one-hour daily aerobics and exercise program, plus a walk out and around the building, along with other residents, all practicing social distancing.
The Pipes and Drums of the Cape Breton Gaelic Society, 1978. Marie Urqhart is standing at the far right. (Source: Facebook)
Another of Marie’s interests was piping, not that she played (although she played the organ when she was younger), but when her son Jamey wanted to play and there wasn’t a local band, she did what not too many mothers might have done and approached the local Cape Breton Gaelic Society (Commun Gaidhlig Cheap Breatuinn), of which she was a member, to sponsor one. They agreed, and with a committee of dedicated Society members, including two pipers, who gave lessons on the chanter, The Pipes and Drums of the Cape Breton Gaelic Society was born. As organizer, Marie was actively involved in all aspects of the band, from encouraging kids to join — they were offered lessons at $1.25 a session — to raising money to outfit them with pipes and kilts, to turning out for weekly practices.
Marie was also involved in organizing a pipe band for the Cape Breton Canada Winter Games in 1987, a true highlight of her pipe-band experience. It also involved the Gaelic Society, in that they were open every evening for the entire week of the games, and it came to the point where they had to lock the doors to limit the crowd. Shauna Doolan and Brine MacIsaac volunteered to play piano and organ each evening, and the place rocked, Marie laughingly recalls. (There was no bar but the one next door did very well, she says!)
But back to Williston House, and its sister residence, Rideout House, where Marie says residents are able to carry on as normal a life as possible, thanks to the manner in which the administrators have managed the many challenges facing them. Entertainment is part and parcel of life in these residences — Bingo, movies and live performances — which Marie figures about 80% of the residents used to take advantage of and likely will again when isolation becomes a thing of the past.
What’s important here is that, as a very involved and active woman who’s still going strong, Marie, while hoping for a return to a normal life sooner rather than later, is quite content and secure in her surroundings.
“I’m safe and happy,” she says and “can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
Dolores Campbell, a lifelong resident of Sydney, is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Cape Breton Highlander, the Nova Scotian, Cape Breton Magazine, Catholic New Times and The Cape Breton Post.
