Rita Fraser with a 100-year-old shotgun, her family and her care provider Owen Kinnersley. (submitted/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Spencer Sterritt

AGING GRACEFULLY

Nanaimo woman still living life to the fullest at 100

Feb 11, 2020 | 5:14 PM

NANAIMO — A beloved Nanaimo woman now has letters from the Queen of England and the Prime Minister of Canada celebrating a rare honour.

Rita Fraser turned 100-years-old on Monday, Feb. 10. She celebrated the occasion with a trip to a restaurant in fine fashion, even enjoying a midday gin and tonic.

Despite her advanced age, Fraser remains a pistol and a rascal.

Before she became much less mobile only a few years ago due to increasing health issues, she was active and enjoying life in rural south of the city along the Nanaimo River.

Her care provider Owen Kinnersley, who brought Rita into his home roughly 13 years ago at her request, said she was almost like a child in Disneyland who needs to be on a leash.

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“She believed she could do everything,” he told NanaimoNewsNOW sitting at his kitchen table with Rita.

She once darted off on him in a store and hid behind a cardboard cut out. Kinnersley could only find her by listening to her giggling behind the cutout.

He should’ve known what he was in for.

During his first week of meeting Rita, when she was still in a care home, he made the mistake of leaving the room for a moment to switch some laundry.

When he came back, she couldn’t be found.

After checking the bushes and down the hall, he was about to call her family to say they’d lost Rita when he noticed something in the room.

“Her feet were sticking out from behind the couch. She crawled into the little space and was laughing her head off at me,” he said with a laugh of his own.

“She’s saying ‘You gotta help me out.’ I said ‘You got yourself in there you can get yourself out.’ She was laughing so hard at me she couldn’t get out.”

Life has certainly slowed down for Rita and Kinnersley. She wakes up relatively late in the morning, is fed around 11:30, naps, then regains energy at 1 p.m. before winding back down around 3 p.m.

Their life is marked by routine, though Kinnersley didn’t seem like he minded. He’s a firm but compassionate caregiver who will call Rita out when she’s trying to get a rise out of him, but is always there to feed her.

Rita was only supposed to live a few years longer when he first started caring for him 13 years ago.

She’s still in relatively fine health for a 100-year-old woman and Kinnersley said he expects she’ll keep him on his toes for years to come.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit