Jim Leir and WinWorkman both have fond memories of summers in the South Okanagan growing up.
Both were honoured as the eldest attendees at the Rotary Club’s Pioneer reception this year. Workman (née Sammet) was born in 1919, and Leir was born in 1928.
“She’s a vintage piece, I’m an old-timer,” joked Leir, who reminisced about spending his days at the beach in the summer.
“My mother used to take us down and throw us in the lake at nine in the morning and come pick us up at four,” said Leir. The kids, he said, would just make a “sand clock,” a simple sundial, and then forget about the time as they spent the day playing in the lake.
Workman said out in Naramata, where she grew up after her family moved to the area in 1921, they used the train as their clock.
“Everyday at quarter to 12 the train went chugging — it was a steam engine — went chugging down the track and then we had to go in and have lunch,” she said. “With no parents anywhere, we would make rafts and go out into the lake. No supervision, nobody was ever hurt.”
|
|
| Win Workman and Jim Leir cut into the cake honouring them as the eldest attendees at the Penticton Rotary club’s annual Pioneer Reception. Steve Kidd/Western News |
Workman also remembers graduating from Penticton Secondary School with just a few close friends.
“My graduating class, I think, had eight people,” she said. “And we didn’t have any graduation ceremonies, you just quit school. It was really quite different.”
Turning to Leir, she asked, “My high school burnt down, did yours?”
Workman has a long association with the Rotary Club. Her daughter, Sue Irvine, was actually the first female to join Rotary as a full member, and her son was a Rotary exchange student.
She also remembers playing tennis on the Leir family courts in her youth, though not with Leir, who is ten years her junior.
“He didn’t, he was still just a little boy,” said Workman.
Both of this year’s honorees are still active members of the community.
Leir drove in from Summerland in a vehicle that predates him — a 1913 Kissel Kar, made in Wisconsin and purchased by Leir, and restored, about 30 years ago.
“I’m sure enjoying life still,” said Workman, who is well into her 99th year. “I was born in 1919, but the second day of the year, so I am almost 100 now. Just a few months.”
Steve Kidd
Senior reporter, Penticton Western News
Email me or message me on Facebook
