F.J. Davey Home played host to a birthday bash on Saturday afternoon, as a throng of well-wishers stopped by to celebrate a soon-to-be centenarian.
The guest of honour was Kay McMaster — a longtime resident of St. Joseph Island and a well-known school teacher along the north shore for decades — who officially turns 100 years old on March 5.
McMaster appeared to be taken aback by the seemingly endless line of friends, family and former students of hers who lined up in the chapel on the main floor of the long-term care home to wish her a happy birthday in person.
“I think it’s stupid,” she told SooToday jokingly, while family members chuckled in the background.
“I’m so glad people would bother for little old me.”
McMaster’s career in education began in 1943 on St. Joseph Island when she was just 18 years old, teaching children in rural, one-room schoolhouses.
The Sault Ste. Marie native ended up taking a decade-long sabbatical from teaching, in which she gave birth to five children before resuming her teaching career on St. Joseph Island, according to daughter Pat Vanderburg.
“During the 10 years that she was off, they were busy amalgamating all those schools and busing had come into being,” Vanderburg said.
McMaster would eventually go on to teach in schools throughout the north shore before retiring in 1985.
“She’s been collecting her teachers’ pension for 40 years — she flips the paperwork and says ‘look at this!’ Isn’t that wonderful?” Vanderburg said.
The educator spent much of her retirement socializing and taking part in activities on St. Joseph Island, even after her late husband died in 2012.
“Everything that was St. Joe’s Island, she would take part in — at the Legion, she would go to all the teas and everything,” said Vanderburg.
“She was so well known in her retirement for doing all this.”
McMaster moved to Sault Ste. Marie in 2018, eventually relocating to the F.J. Davey Home about five years later.
“She has thrived. I cannot tell you how happy we are with her care here,” Vanderburg said.
Nowadays, McMaster primarily uses her iPad to communicate with family members, and to catch up on the news and weather.
But perhaps her biggest source of entertainment comes from putting together puzzles.
“She does puzzles until they’re coming out of your ears — no one could do as many puzzles,” Vanderburg said.
Her daughter says that McMaster has been “really excited,” for Saturday’s come-and-go birthday celebration, which saw stacks of birthday cards for McMaster piled up beside her.
“She’s going to have a wonderful time reading all those boxes of cards,” Vanderburg said.