You can go ahead and ask her what the secret to longevity is, but Ruby McMullen won’t have a simple answer for you. Her long life doesn’t filter down to simple answers.
She cares about what is going on in the outside world, the one she observes daily on her television set, and the one she sees from the picture window of the modest Guelph home she has lived in since 1958. She cares about the outside world.
Asked what her favourite things in the whole world are and she points to a pair of “very pricey” ceramic bowls in her China cabinet. Moorcroft, the kind the Queen of England likes.
Ask her what the most important thing she every did in her life was and she is quick to answer: Having her four children. And what was the most difficult thing to live through? Losing one of those children.
Resting in a display binder on her side table, one holding about 10 citations from very important people, Ruby has the page turned to one from Queen Elizabeth herself – congratulations for turning 100. She’s proud of that.
“She is such a nice looking lady,” she says of the queen, agreeing that is a good quality for a monarch to have.
She’s also proud of the fact that up until a year and a half ago she was still driving a car, and proud that it was her choice to stop driving, not something forced upon her. Tops among her driving experiences was the time she drove to a casino near Milton with a carload of friends and won $2,500.
“That was a good haul,” she said.
Born Ruby Rathwell in 1917, raised on a farm near Paisley, ON. by strong, hard-working parents, Ruby married farmer Mick McMullen in 1938. He was from the nearby village of Tara. They started their lives together on the farm, and had four children.
“I think we had a pretty good marriage,” Ruby said. Mick, who was a tank crew member during World War II, died in 1973, a long time ago. “Oh, we had some disagreements, like any couple does.”
Her hearing is not what it used to be, but her curiosity about the world around her has not waned in a century.
“I have always been interested in the outside things in the world,” she said.
Nelson Mandela was someone she greatly admired, and she is all-ears when it comes to Barack Obama speeches.
“I would say that having outside interests is a big part of my longevity,” she added. “When you have outside interests you’re not stuck with yourself too much.”
She was given a treasured Kindle E-reader so she could up-size the text and keep reading the books she loves. Her best friend is also her oldest friend – Jean Bell is 102, and has been a friend for over 50 years.
Ruby’s father died when she was nine. Her mother ran the farm and raised the children. Maybe it was from her mother’s example that she learned the independence and self-reliance she is noted for. She also has a reputation for unwavering kindness, although she denies it.
“At 63, I learned to swim,” Ruby said, her daughter-in-law Joy Roberts in the room for moral support. “I always wanted to be able to swim. I went out for exercise in water, and it just kind of progressed from there. There was a bunch of us, all about my age, that learned together, and we just had a great time. Swimming was a great thing in my life.”
She continued to swim for as long as she was able to, and raised money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation by swimming laps during special fundraising events.
She learned to swim for the same reason she learned to do most things. “Because I wanted to.”
After her husband died, Ruby was on her own. But she appears not to have been plagued by loneliness. Great friends kept her socially engaged.
Ask Ruby whether or not she took care of her health over her long life, and she will say not particularly. She never smoked, and rarely drank because it gave her a headache.
“I like to garden,” she said. “That’s why I liked to live here, because I had a big lawn and a garden.”
Sometime after moving to Guelph in ’58, Ruby studied to be a nurse’s assistant. She worked for many years at St. Joseph's Hospital, taking a night shift while her children, Keith, Douglas, Jeanne and Linden were growing up, Joy Roberts said.
Her son Linden passed away 10 years ago from cancer.
“I never thought I could keep living if I lost a child, but here I am,” Ruby said.
She has lived to be 100, and is grateful that she has reached that rare milestone, sound of mind and in good health.
“But if you’re not well, I don’t think it would be that great to live to be 100,” she said. “You would be kind of a burden to yourself and to other people.”
After a long conversation, Ruby McMullen shares just a sliver of longevity advice.
“I do think you better shape up and look after yourself,” she says. “And hold your own. Don’t be pushed around.”
A 100th birthday celebration is planned for Saturday, 2-4 p.m. at Harcourt Memorial United Church, 87 Dean Ave. Many friends, young and old, will be in attendance.
