105-year-old Port Alberni man receives birthday card from the Queen Elizabeth
Oscar Inglin celebrated his 105th birthday on Tuesday and says he has no intention of slowing down. Aside from thrombosis, he said his body works perfectly. Queen Elizabeth sent him a birthday card.
Not only did he celebrate his 105th birthday last Tuesday, a feat that earned him a birthday card from Queen Elizabeth, he still has all his fingers despite working 35 years in a lumber mill.But the unusual tale of Inglin’s long life doesn’t end there. Born in Switzerland in 1905, he was one of three boys. His father was blinded in an industrial accident and his mother was left with the challenge of running the house and raising the teens. She managed with an iron fist, which eventually drove Inglin away. Far away. He arrived in Canada in the early 1920s and landed in Saskatoon where he trained to be a nurse. Though he married a Canadian girl, also a nurse, he wasn’t given much credibility in a field then dominated by women.
As the economy in Canada sputtered and jobs became scarce, Inglin and his wife headed west. She completed her nurse’s training and Inglin’s employer told him he was needed in Port Alberni.
“In B.C. nobody knew where Port Alberni was,” said Inglin. “Nobody in Vancouver could tell me where it was, except that it was near Nanaimo.”
In 1924 Inglin and his wife stepped off the ferry and made their way to their new home in the middle of Vancouver Island. To this day Inglin remembers it raining so hard that it sloshed over the tops of his wife’s calf-high boots. But he came to love the rain — eventually — and today it’s one of his fondest memories of the Valley.
But the trials and tribulations of Inglin’s life were far from over.
The new job at the local hospital didn’t bring much satisfaction for the Swiss immigrant. So he went to join the army. Unfortunately, the Swiss government refused to send Inglin the necessary papers to become a Canadian until 1945, at which point he promptly enlisted.
“I did a lot of medical work with the army in Europe,” said Inglin. “I spent five years in the army until 1950.”
Inglin was still overseas when his friend told him about a job at a brand new pulp mill in Port Alberni. Before long he returned to work in the city’s new MacMillan Bloedel facility. Inglin worked as a first responder in the event of an accident or injury, but no one was injured in the first year. So the company chopped Inglin’s job and shifted him to the digester where he spent the next three decades.
“It paid much better, which is what I needed,” said Inglin. “I made newsprint and paper.”
Inglin retired in 1970 following a successful career at the mill.
“It’s a heck of a long time to be retired,” he said, looking back. But he’s never at a loss of things to do. He said he can spend hours thinking of the past and dreaming. His wife died in 1960 and Inglin spent years travelling. He went to South Africa when he was 90.
These days, Inglin lives in Port Alberni's Fir Park Village. He said he feels like he’s 80 and his body works perfectly. He loves beer and still sneaks the occasional drink, but mostly he lives a simple and healthy lifestyle.
“I have a TV, but I never watch it,” he said. “I’d rather look out the window or be outside.”
Alberni Valley Times
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/year+Port+Alberni+receives+birthday+card+from+Queen/3085033/story.html#ixzz0pNRh1M9C
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Oldman story,105th birthday,Alberni oldman,birthday card ,
