Don MacNaughton waits by the phone. It’s a crisp autumn afternoon with a sunny blue sky and cool fresh air. It’s a perfect day for a walk, but Don sits in his home watching his scientifically accurate GPS clock and keeps the phone nearby.

It rings.

He answers.

It’s not his mother.

He promptly hangs up to free the line in case she tries to reach him. Don gave his mother meticulous directions to help her arrive safely at her intended destination, but “sometimes she forgets to read them,” he says. Don told her to call if she had any problems. For a 91-year-old woman she is impressively coherent, but it is understandable that she can be a bit forgetful.

Frances MACLEAN Macnaughton ’35, ventures forth from her Yonge Street seniors’ building and travels downtown by subway to attend a concert at Roy Thomson Hall. Frances loves Beethoven, and has been looking forward to attending the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s production of his Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.”

Though a trip downtown can be a rather long journey for a 91-year-old, Frances has travelled much farther for her appreciation of classical music. When she was in her mid-40s she decided to chase classical music back to the source: Germany. It was there that some of her favourite composers—Beethoven, Bach, Wagner—lived, were inspired, and composed.

For two years Frances lived in Germany and absorbed as much of the culture as she could. When she speaks of that time in her life she declares, “ja kann ich Deutsches sprechen,” in an impressive accent.

Being born on July 4, 1916 makes Frances one of the oldest Old Girls. After graduating from BSS in 1935, Frances pursued and obtained her BA at Trinity College in 1938. From there she went on to earn her Bachelor of Social Work two years later at the age of 23 from the University of Toronto. Despite achieving a high level of education, especially for a woman of her generation, Frances isn’t satisfied.

“I don’t know enough,” she declares with an air of stating the obvious, adding, “even though I’m 91—who cares!”

In her quaint apartment, crowded with the accumulated memorabilia of a long life, Frances flips through some of her much-loved photographs as she settles into a soft-pink armchair. She points to herself standing in the School’s Chapel next to a former schoolmate. This is one of the Old Girls she saw about 10 years ago at a reunion. She laments that not many of her class are still alive. There’s another photo Frances snapped of Pope John Paul II during one of his visits to Canada.

But the photographs that make her smile the most are the ones with her sons in them: Don, 63, and Ross, 59. Her youngest, Ross, has also blessed Frances with two grandsons who she points out with pride. Don feels that his mother put everything of herself into raising him and his younger brother.

“I’m a happy camper now and I think that much of it is due to what mymother has done,” says Don. “I’ve got two words,” he says about his mother, “she’s great!”

Though Frances is comfortable and happy now, her life has not always been easy. Her father passed away when she was very young leaving her with her mother and soon a stepfather she was never particularly fond of. It wasn’t just a broken home that made life difficult. Like every other child born in the early 1900s, Frances lived through the tumultuous
years of two world wars.

Frances recalls the way BSS pulled together to pitch in with the war effort. There was bandage rolling, recyclable metal collecting, and all sorts of war efforts organized at the school. For Frances, her clearest memories are of the boys, barely men, that she saw face to face.

“We did a lot of work to help the soldiers who came back from the war. We read to them up in North Toronto at the hospital. We’d look at their wounds. It really upset us. It was uncomfortable because some of them were not well and they suffered a lot. I felt sadness to see them suffer.”

Having lost her father at a young age and being an only child Frances didn’t have immediate family to lose to the war, but her BSS family was not immune to the tragedies of that time; girlfriends, classmates and teachers were all touched by death.

“I couldn’t believe it was all happening like that. It wasn’t that it was a hard time, it was hard to believe. To kill a lot of people in another country, as many as you could kill and they try the best to kill you, it was strange.”

France buried herself in volunteer work along with her school work. It was the only way she could cope with what was happening in the world. “I kept busy, I guess, I did what I could.”

While she pursued her post-secondary education war broke out again, and Frances found herself, once more, at the bedsides of soldiers. The time she spent helping the returning soldiers spurred a desire within Frances to help anyone in need. This desire led to obtaining her degree in social work.

Somewhere between chasing her education credentials and attending to wounded soldiers, Frances found the time to meet a nice man. She married Alex Macnaughton a few years after she graduated from the University of Toronto and quickly settled into the life of a homemaker. The two had met at Trinity College and Alex had become a lawyer.

Frances, addicted to learning, applied herself to becoming a good mother. She attended motherhood classes and parenting classes in an attempt to be the best mom possible and she must have done something right. Today her relationship with her sons remains strong. Every day at 10 am Don calls Frances just to chat.

Though Frances loved her children and her life she couldn’t quell the adventurer within her. Eventually, her desire to be an independent adventurous woman won out over her desire to be married and she separated from her husband.

Don was in his late teens at the time of his parent’s separation and he remembers his mother taking off to Germany to chase the great composers of classical music. Through it all, he says, she continued to be the classy woman he has always known.

“She is always good to people. I’ve never heard her say a bad word about anybody and if she does it’s very roundabout.”

Frances still thinks fondly of Alex, who remarried and now, at the age of 92, lives with Don.

“We had different ways of looking at life,” says Frances. “Now, I can do what I want.”

From war and marriage, motherhood and divorce, keeping house and travelling the world, Frances has filled her 91 years and lived more than many of us could if we reach 101. And she’s not slowing down.

She dines out with her sons, she participates in yoga, she attends Bible Study, she is currently attending a continuing education course at Ryerson University about meditation and she is very active in and aware of the world of nutrition, (Frances attributes her long life to being a vegetarian and getting regular exercise). “I want to learn more,” is her mantra, words that escape her lips repeatedly.

And of all this, if you ask her what the greatest accomplishment
of her life is, her face will glow and she’ll say through her smile, “Bringing up my two sons. Making them great the way they are, and they are great.”

 

Posted January 04, 2008 at 01:43pm

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