Marie Mathers has received many honours for her volunteer work, which has included serving as president and secretary of the Prince Albert District Branch.
At 89, Marie Mathers is still, as the phrase goes, all systems go. This despite being burdened with the bodily betrayals of age and cancer.
“I can never lie in bed wondering what I’m going to do with the day,“ Mathers told Sage in a recent interview from her home in Prince Albert, Sask. “I just think of the beauty of life and how everything improves when you just get out and do something — and I get up and do something. It works every time.“
She has found things to do since early childhood on the farm she grew up on. “[After school,] I would buy groceries and carry them home, and then would start hours of work with the cows, the pigs and the chickens. It was a pretty hard life, but it was full of satisfactions.“
Her parents instilled in her a sense that it was important to give back as much as you could to the community. She took their advice to heart, spending years volunteering for a number of organizations: Scouts Canada for 47 years; St. John Ambulance for 18 years; The Prince Albert Housing Authority for 25. The Vintage Power Machines Museum, just outside Prince Albert, has enjoyed her help for 27 years. And there are more.
The community has shown its gratitude in many ways. In 2021, she was honoured as Prince Albert’s Citizen of the Year. In 2023, she received the Meritorious Service Award and a lifetime membership from the Royal Canadian Legion, where she remains an active volunteer, with special responsibility for Remembrance Day, visitations with widows, and bingos.
She and her late husband, Bob, were stalwarts at the Legion for decades. Bob fought in the Second World War and was wounded on D-Day. Though Marie was too young to serve, she was considered a veteran because of several years of service as a penitentiary officer in her early life.
Though he died three decades ago, Bob is still a presence in her life. “Bob was a very quiet and determined man whose time in the military never left him. He made sure to dress well, was always on time, and his deportment was always No. 1. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.“
Like many other veterans, she says, Bob “would never speak about the war at all — not unless he’d had a drink or two. It was too serious a subject for cheap talk.“
Though she’d always volunteered, Bob’s death drove her desire to help others into overdrive. “I had to do something,“ she recalls, “I was going out of my mind in the house.“
For 14 years, she’s had melanoma, a form of cancer. She’s had 89 chemo treatments, and still has monthly bloodwork. But it’s not stopping her. “I still enjoy what I’m doing, and frankly, I still have a dream of living to 100. Maybe I will, if I keep busy enough with all these organizations,“ she says with a laugh.
One of those organizations continues to be the National Association of Federal Retirees.
She served as president of the Prince Albert & District Branch (SK26) for eight years and secretary for five. She’s now the health liaison officer.
“I love the association,“ she says, adding that she sells tickets at malls for the Christmas and Easter banquets. “It’s one of the things I love to do.“