100 years in the making: Helen MacPhail
100 years in the making: Helen MacPhail
By Lauren MacNeill
Assistant communications advisor (summer student)
Helen MacPhail at home. Photo: Lauren MacNeill
Helen MacPhail spent her childhood in Argyle Shore, P.E.I. She always liked cats, dogs and horses. Her home was only a quarter mile away from a farm called The Forge.
“I used to go over there, and they were very good to me. They had a stool that I could sit on so that I wasn’t in any danger of getting kicked by a horse,” MacPhail recalled.
Many times, there would be pieces of steel laying around the farm. “They’d make little straps–they’d make rings for me and bracelets,” MacPhail recalled.
MacPhail, who now lives in Clyde River, P.E.I., recently turned 100 years old. She sat down to talk about her life journey and her favorite memories. MacPhail went to the one-room school in Argyle Shore.
“I used to walk all the time in the summertime. In the wintertime, we had to get a drive,” she said.
To get water, MacPhail would go down to the nearby creek. One day, somebody gifted her with a fancy mug that could fold up.
“I could have a drink myself, and everybody else loved to borrow my mug to get a drink,” she said.
She lived in Argyle Shore until she went to Union Commercial College to take a typing, dictation and shorthand course. “I did the whole program in one year,” she said.
After finishing college, MacPhail got a job as a secretary at Clarke Fruit Company, where she stayed for eight years. During her time there, MacPhail’s boss never called her by her name–instead, he always called her ‘little girl.’
One day, he called her into his office and started dictating a letter for her to type. The letter was being written to a man from whom he had bought a horse.
“He was swearing, mainly because the horse didn’t turn out to be a good animal!” MacPhail recalled.
She typed the letter he had dictated, but left out the swear words. Once finished, she left it on her boss’s desk and left the office…shortly afterwards, he called MacPhail back in.
“You didn’t write this letter the way I wanted it. You left out a whole lot of it. Why did you do that?” he said to her. “Because I never type swear words,” MacPhail replied.
He had her mail the letter anyway.
“[My boss] never gave me a letter again with swear words in it,” she said.
Aside from MacPhail’s job, she also volunteered with the Clyde River Women’s Institute, Clyde River Baptist Church and the Canadian Institute for the Blind (CNIB). Recently, she received her 100-year anniversary coin set.
She doesn’t really know what prompted her to join CNIB. “I’m a royal member, so I don’t have to pay my dues anymore,” she said.
Helen seated below a photo of her husband, Lloyd. Photo: Lauren MacNeill
MacPhail’s husband, Lloyd, was a Progressive Conservative MLA for 25 years. From 1985 to 1990, he was the 36th Lieutenant Govenor of Prince Edward Island. This meant he had to attend a lot of public events…and he brought his wife with him.
MacPhail says she enjoyed how busy that chapter of her life was. “And then on the way home, he would ask me how he did or whether he didn’t say something that he should have. We would discuss everything,” she said.
One time, MacPhail and her husband were in Cavendish for an ice cream social. During the event, he came rushing over to MacPhail.
“We have to leave. There’s an event going on down in Long Creek,” Lloyd said to his wife. This was news to MacPhail–she hadn’t heard about any events happening in Long Creek.
“We got in the car and drove across Prince Edward Island in lickety split – we didn’t get a ticket or anything,” she recalled.
Lloyd died in 1995.
Reflecting on her 100 years of life, MacPhail said that everything about Clyde River is very special to her. “There’s nothing here that I would dislike,” she said.
For younger Clyde River residents, MacPhail has one piece of advice: attend community meetings. “And church is important, of course,” she said.