World Traveller— Lois Harquail

World Traveller

Lois Harquail

Lois has lived all over the world and despite the world experiencing a myriad of challenges, she continues to be optimistic, creative and social. If she isn’t driving out of town to her TOP’s meeting, a group that she founded many years ago, she is flying to Ottawa to visit family. Because her husband was in the military, Lois spent much of her life living in various countries and seeing the world.

Lois spent the first of her 82 years in Ontario, the fifth of eleven children. Coming from a large family, enabled her to understand hard work growing up on their farm. Picking raspberries and strawberries, doing chores and caring for the cattle, pigs and horses, canning vegetables kept her busy but there was always time for baseball and games in the summer and tobogganing and skating in the winter. To this day, Lois loves to make preserves like dill pickles and carrots, zucchini relish and various jellies.

Lois remembers ration cards from the war, but she was young and it wouldn’t be until later in her life that she would work for the National Department of Defense. This is where she met her husband. From her office desk, she could see the various soldiers doing their drills, but it was spelling his name wrong – a “g” instead of a “q” on one of the Part orders that got them talking. From there it led to dates and dances and a marriage of four children – 2 daughters and 2 sons. During their time in Germany, Lois loved the experiences and people she met.

One memorable experience was connecting with a pen pal from Holland after Lois’ letter was finally delivered in a roundabout way through a postmaster and her friend’s brother. She keeps in touch with many friends and stays connected to her siblings in Ontario. She loves her family and cherished the memories of working as a custodian and secretary for the school division. She also chuckled when the grandkids would visit and were instructed not to have any candy. That didn’t dissuade them from quietly lifting the candy jar. She always knew they were in there though, because it was putting the lid back on that made all the noise.

During the pandemic, Lois kept in touch with others by phoning others. She also read a lot and loved crocheting 11 afghans for her grandchildren. She also made lap blankets for people at the hospital. Other projects she has done are going through her photos and making photo albums for her grown kids and grandchildren. She gave her kids cassettes and albums at Christmas when they were all together.

One huge change she has noticed in her years is that young people just don’t understand the importance of socializing. They should listen to their elders more, as it seems they do not have as much respect for them. There is wisdom to impart and they are not listening because they are immersed in their phones. Lois’ advice is to put down the phones and have a face-toface conversation! I am thankful I was able to do just that with her!