MILESTONE PARTY FOR PEGGY
Local woman marks 105th birthday
All Peggy Chamney wanted for her 105th birthday was a beer.
It had to be cold and it had to be Guinness Harp Lager. She had cake, too. “Never in my life have I seen a cake that big,” said Chamney as staff at Banwell Gardens Care Centre threw her the first of two parties for her 105th birthday on Tuesday.
Her family and staff hear there may be a fellow in Windsor who has already reached 105 but Chamney could be the oldest living woman in the Windsor area. She has five children — four of her own and a fifth she raised as her own. She has 27 great-great-grandchildren. The family has lost count of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the five generations.
Margaret, who goes by the name Peggy, was born in Goderich on Aug. 9, 1911, and came to live in Windsor in the 1930s. Her secret? “Irish stubbornness,” she said. “If they tell me I can’t do it, that’s when I do it.”
Her family was gathering for a second birthday party Tuesday afternoon and figured even at 105 she’d be up for it. Chamney had a great-grandson who got married a couple months ago and she was having so much fun at the wedding reception she didn’t want to leave, said her 82-year-old son Bill Chamney.
“Some of the wedding party said to my grandson you get her out here because she ain’t outlasting us. A 104-year-old outlast us? They got her back to the nursing home about midnight I think.”
Her granddaughter Carla Sartori, 58, said they couldn’t get Grandma Peggy to leave. She loves being with her great-grandchildren. “She likes to party.”
At 100, the longtime Windsor Spitfires fan got to drop the puck at centre ice for a game.
She was 104 and still living in her own house, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. She was falling too much so her family moved her to Banwell Gardens. Her son said doctors realized she had five broken bones which had healed. She didn’t tell anyone about them as she wanted to continue living on her own.
Tuesday, she got a letter of congratulations from the mayor, her cold beer, cake and music, including an Irish Rovers song or two.
“Here’s looking at you,” she said to the singer as she raised her glass of Harp.
She was licking the icing from the cake off her fingers before the crowd urged her to blow out her candles. A couple of firefighters were on hand but Banwell Gardens staff only lit three candles.
Her memory is good. She speaks her mind, insists on making her own bed in the morning and likes to play slots at the casino. “I just can’t believe it,” Bill said of his mother turning 105.
“It’s unbelievable.”
Irish stubbornness. If they tell me I can’t do it, that’s when I do it.