By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service
She's a wisp of a woman now, just 86 pounds. She doesn't speak much and can't walk anymore -- getting wheeled outside into a waft of spring blossoms, then back to her nursing home's dining hall for a bowl of watermelon, makes a busy day for Elizabeth Buhler.
But the "supercentenarian" from Winkler, Man., is a superlative citizen in every way. She's Canada's oldest person and -- just ask her 80-year-old daughter, Lena Pranke of Winnipeg -- the most beloved mother in the world.
"She was always a hard-working woman," recalls Pranke. "She had her faith in God -- that was one of her priorities. And she taught us the Bible and how to sing. We were always singing."
Now, at 111 years of age, Buhler is also one of Canada's last Victorians.
Born Feb. 8, 1899, she is the eldest among a tiny handful of people left in Canada who lived during the reign of Queen Victoria, the 19th-century monarch who signed Canada into existence in 1867.
She also gave her name to British Columbia's capital city, to Canada's second-largest island and to the statutory holiday that millions of Canadians will spend this Monday lounging at the cottage, celebrating with fireworks, planting their gardens or (bless this particular May 24, the actual 191st anniversary of Victoria's birth) watching the Montreal Canadiens continue their unexpected quest for the Stanley Cup.
That's the famed trophy -- in case the connection isn't clear -- donated by Queen Victoria's viceregal representative in Canada, Lord Stanley, in 1892.
Queen Elizabeth's great-great grandmother would reign another nine years after that, before her death at age 81 on Jan. 22, 1901 brought an end to the Victorian Age into which Buhler -- and perhaps as few as three other Canadians alive today -- were born.
Saskatchewan's oldest citizen, Pearl Lutzko -- like Buhler a Ukraine-born immigrant to Canada -- is also 111, born on Feb. 15, 1899.
Canada's second-oldest child of Queen Victoria's world now lives at a seniors' home in Ituna, about 100 kilometres northeast of Regina -- another provincial capital named in honour of Canada's 19th-century monarch.
Cora Hansen -- an immigrant from Norway born on March 25, 1899 -- is the oldest person in Alberta, a province named for a daughter of (you guessed it) Queen Victoria.
And while St. Catharines, Ont.'s Carrie Pattison (born Jan. 30, 1900) can't claim membership with Buhler, Lutzko and Hansen in Canada's very exclusive 19th-century club, she is one of just four known Canadian supercentenarians -- the term used to describe individuals 110 years of age or older.
And Pattison, who was born in this country, is distinguished as the only one of the four who lived (for nearly one year) as a subject of Queen Victoria.
There may be a few other living Canadians born in 1900 or January 1901 who would be counted among the country's last Victorians. Regardless, it is a small and dwindling community of Canadian elders. They represent an increasingly tenuous connection to an era receding rapidly from Canada's lived experience into the pages of pure history.
Earlier this year, another of Canada's few remaining Victorians passed away amid considerable public attention. John Babcock, born on July 23, 1900, near Kingston, Ont., was the last surviving Canadian veteran of the First World War until his death on Feb. 18.
Though he lived most of his life in the U.S. and died in Spokane, Wash., his longtime home, Babcock's death was solemnly marked by the Canadian government as the "end of an era" -- the eclipse of our last living link to a crucial moment in the life of the country.
So, what can be said of those few supercentenarians who represent our last living links to to the 19th century and Victorian Canada?
"Think of what 1899 meant -- it was just the generation after Confederation," says Andrew Cohen, president of the Historica-Dominion Institute and a leading advocate for preserving Canada's historical memory.
"Victoria was on the throne. It was an entirely different, Anglo-Saxon, starched, white Canada, very much tied to its British past. Another world."
Contemplating key anniversaries and milestones, such as the eventual passing of those who lived in Queen Victoria's time, "has a capacity to stir a latent interest" in Canada's history and evolution, adds Cohen.
"We're not a nation acutely conscious of our past -- that's why organizations like mine exist," he says. "When John Babcock died, we suddenly closed the book, in a metaphysical sense, on a part of our past. There's no one around now who fought then."
Cohen points out that Buhler and the other supercentenarians whose lives spanned three centuries witnessed "dizzying" changes in Canada's technological development, its ethnic composition, its political organization. They offer "a connection to a Canada that has changed so radically" and are "measures of where we are, where we've been and where we're going," he notes. "When that physical link goes, it's a statement to us that that time really has departed."
Earlier this week, the genealogy service Ancestry.ca released the results of a national poll tapping Canadians' thoughts about Victoria Day.
While about 64 per cent of the 1,030 respondents favour the continued honouring of Queen Victoria on the May holiday weekend, the survey revealed there are many new Canadians and younger citizens with a faint attachment to the woman who reigned for 63 years over Canada and other parts of the British Empire.
"The results are intriguing because they demonstrate that, while there is still great support for the holiday, a lot of that support comes from older Canadians with a strong sense of their British ancestral ties," said Ancestry.ca spokeswoman Karen Peterson. "Many younger Canadians, and newer Canadians, are less supportive of the holiday."
In Quebec, the May holiday is celebrated as National Patriots' Day to honour the pro-democracy forces of the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion.
Just 37 per cent of Quebec respondents in the Ancestry.ca poll support celebrating Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne the same year as the 1837 revolt.
But in Manitoba, the province most supportive of the holiday, 76 per cent of those surveyed applauded the tribute to Queen Victoria.
Among them, apparently, is Buhler. She was, says Pranke, always fond of the Royal Family, filling many scrapbooks with newspaper clippings, magazine photos and other souvenirs celebrating Canada's monarchy.
"I have so many old pictures of the Royal Family -- about 10 scrapbooks full," she says. "I got most of them from Mom and I hate to throw them away."
Queen Victoria, we are sure, would be amused.
