Ismay Ann (Gray) Cruickshank (1886 - 1996)

Born 25 Jul 1886 in Clavering, Grey, Ontario, Canada

Died 1996 at about age 109 in Owen Sound, Grey, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Centurion Dies

Article from The Owen Sound Sun Times by Scott Dunn (circa. 1996)

Ismay Cruickshank may have been Canada's oldest citizen

An Owen Sound woman who was older than the city she lived in died Monday at the age of 109. Ismay Ann Cruickshank may have been Canada's oldest citizen.

Mrs. Cruickshank died at Grey Bruce Regional Health Centre following possible heart trouble, her grandson Tom McKay said Tuesday night. She had outlived her husband, her four children, her brothers and sisters and all her friends.

Interviewed last September, she remarked on her longevity. "And here I am 109, I don't really understand it, I just keep on going."

Mrs. Cruickshank moved into Second Avenue Lodge at age 97, after a dizzy spell while cleaning her windows convinced her she shouldn't live by herself anymore.

"Well at 97 cleaning her own windows, that'll tell you what sort of person," chuckled Patrick Timmons, the retirement home administrator. "Remarkable person. When you look at her age and her outlook on life, and everything in general, it was just unbelievable," said Timmons, who had grown very fond of his eldest resident. "This person was as sharp as a button to the end."

She was a member of Knox United Church for 86 years, and her Christian work ethic and sense of fair play was a significant side to her character, grandson Tom said. Mrs. Cruickshank leaves six grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.

She once remarked to Tom that she was born in an era when people walked everywhere and then lived to see space travel. She was born July 25, 1886 in nearby Clavering. After perhaps three years she moved to Park Head, near Hepworth. Her father, William Gray, worked for the railway, ran a sawmill and a general store. Her first trip to Owen Sound was in 1898 when she was 12.

She attended Owen Sound Northern Business College and worked as a bookkeeper until she married James Cruickshank, a millwright, in 1909. Her father-in-law was a builder and the newly married couple moved into the house he constructed for them on 14th Street W. A year later they moved next door and Cruickshank lived there for more than 70 years. Her husband died in 1962.

There will be no funeral service, in keeping with Mrs. Cruickshank's wishes, but a memorial is being planned at her grave site in Greenwood Cemetery on her birthday, next July 25, her grandson said.

Sources

• Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada). Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928, 1933-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928; Series: MS932; Reel: 147

• FindAGrave Memorial for Ismay Cruickshank