Helen Nott can’t help but smile as she marks her 100 birthday. “I can’t tell myself that I am a hundred years old. I still think I’m about 60,” said the Huron County centenarian. To mark her special day, her daughters put out an online call for as many birthday cards as they could hoping to hit 100 by their mom’s birthday on Oct. 13. They far exceeded that with nearly 300 birthday cards now covering every centimetre of their mother’s room at Huronview Long Term Care Home in Clinton. “Oh my gosh. It means the world to us that so many people would go out of their way to send the card to somebody that they don’t know, and have never ever met. So yeah, it’s wonderful. People are kind,” said Nott’s daughter, Dianne Bennett. Cards came from children at a local school, and local friends and family, but the vast majority are from complete strangers from across North America. Some from as far away as Newfoundland and California. “Many, many thanks people. I don’t know you, but I appreciate your card,” said Nott. Nott believes the secret to reaching 100 lies in keeping busy. Something she’s been doing her entire life. Even today, working on her most recent craft project. “I just couldn’t keep my hands quiet. They always had to be doing something. If I wasn’t doing something, there was something wrong with me. The fingers got to keep working,” said Nott. Now those fingers are kept busy reading the hundreds of birthday cards, adorning her room sent from strangers from around the world. A tradition that she hopes to repeat, for many more birthdays to come. “I said, I’m going to go to 106. But I doubt it. We’ll get through 100 first, and then we’ll look after that afterwards,” she said.
