Millie (Mildred) Olson of Williams Lake will celebrate her 100th birthday on Thursday, April 27.
Reflecting on the last century, Millie said she enjoys life.
“I never drank or smoked and I didn’t have much time for anything else because I always worked on farms or ranches with cows and chickens,” she said. “I milked a lot of cows.”
Born in Ashcroft and raised at Dog Creek, 85 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake, she was one of five children born to Joseph Place Jr. and Violet (Lyne).
Her grandfather, J.S. Place, arrived in Dog Creek in the early 1880s and her dad’s brothers Charlie Place and Frank Place were also ranchers.
She grew up with lots of cousins, she said.
Millie attended the school in Dog Creek which opened in 1926.
She enjoyed learning and said after Grade 9 she and the other high school-aged students finished to Grade 12 by taking correspondence courses.
“We’d get our papers and sit down inside the school and do the work there,” she recalled.
Outside of school she worked on the ranch alongside her siblings.
“We all had to work. I milked cows and at haying time I was out working in the fields. I had two horses and I drove the rig,” she said, with a nice smile, hinting of the pride she took in her work.
On June 30, 1942, she married Walter Olson in Kamloops. She was 19 years old at the time.
Originally from Colgate, Sask., Walter was in the Dog Creek area mining along the Fraser River with a sluice box when they met.
Walter enlisted in the Canadian Army and when he left during the Second World War, Millie returned to live on the ranch in Dog Creek.
Lavina Felker, Millie’s only child, said she didn’t meet her dad until he returned from the war.
In 1953 the Olsons moved to a ranch at the far end of Canim Lake because Walter needed a job that paid.
He died in 1977 and Millie stayed there until she moved to Williams Lake to be near her daughter.
Up until recently she stayed by herself in a little house at the back of Lavina and her late husband Norm Felker’s property. Now she lives in the same house as her daughter.
For Millie’s birthday they plan to order in some food and have cake and celebrate with family.
Millie has three grandsons - Wayne, Brian and Calvin - and two great grandchildren.
Norm Felker died on Dec. 22, 2022 and he used to take them on drives, sometimes to Dog Creek.
“The last time we took a drive to Dog Creek was about two years ago,” Millie said. “The old school house has been turned into something else.”
She continues to have fond memories of Dog Creek and said she will remember the area always.
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monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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