When Lulu Marriott was born, Wilfred Laurier was starting his fourth term as prime minister, Mother’s Day was being celebrated for the first time and Ford was just beginning production of the Model T.
The life-long Lambton resident passed away Friday at the age of 106.
Enniskillen Mayor Kevin Marriott is Lulu’s grandson. His mother introduced the then Lulu Weatherstone to Reid Marriott. They women had worked together at the gasket factory and the younger Marriott thought the pair would hit it off. They did and they married merging her family of two children with his six kids.
Marriott was born on a farm in Brooke Township working along side her family through the early 1900s and the Great Depression, a time she would later recall to her grandson as a period that it was difficult to get enough to eat.
The mayor says the girls were required to work just as hard as the boys on the farm, and it was a work ethic she carried with her throughout life.
But Marriott believes it was his grandmother’s positive outlook and happiness which was the main reason for her long life.
“I stayed at their place a lot when they lived on Eureka Street,” says the mayor. “I remember walking in there as a kid and she never stopped smiling from the moment you walked in until the moment you left.
“You almost thought ‘what is she smiling about?’ and now I realize it was just her attitude.”
Marriott says even the workers at Fiddick’s Nursing Home, where his grandmother spent the last years of her life, always commented on her good sense of humor.
Marriott says his grandmother was relatively healthy and had a sharp mind right until the end of her life.
“People have always said they’ve never ever met such a warm friendly, bubbly lady,” Marriott says.