'She's just strong': Sudbury woman celebrates 105th birthday

The eldest of 13 siblings, Bernice Adkins celebrated her 105th birthday July 10 at Extendicare Falconbridge, where she has lived for approximately nine years.

“Everybody else passed away, and she’s strong -- she could be here another five years,” her daughter, Dolly Dagenais, 85, told our sister site Sudbury.com as family members snacked on birthday cake.

“She’s just strong. When she first got in and she was walking with a walker, she’d get up and forget she was using a walker.”

She was still driving a vehicle and step dancing well into her 80s, Dagenais said, noting that she has always been an active lady.

“Everyone is just keeping busy and their minds active,” said Adkins’ granddaughter, Jennifer Etmanski, adding that an active mindset runs in the family.

She remembers enjoying visiting her grandmother, where there was a dog, a yard with a swing and all manner of antiques and games tucked away in cupboards.

Adkins was born in Vermont and raised “in the bush,” Dagenais said, adding that she never received a formal education but ended up quick as a whip by self-educating herself.

Adkins’ husband, Walter, worked security for the military, and moved their family throughout Ontario, including stints in the Greater Sudbury area. 

“She would remodel apartments, so when somebody moved she would repaint the entire apartment. She was like an interior decorator,” Dagenais said, adding that her mother would also make and patch clothing, and was “the perfect waitress.”

“For someone who didn’t have an education, she learned real fast what there was to learn,” Dagenais said. “She was something else.”

Adkins had four children with Walter, including Dagenais, Nancy Vaudry, Suzanne Adkins and Garry Adkins. Garry died young, Dolly and Nancy still visit her regularly, and Suzanne lives in a rest home in Kingston.

She also has eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

For her 100th birthday, she posed for a photo with five generations of the family. 

During her 105th birthday this week, Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc and Mayor Paul Lefebvre joined a handful of family members to wish Adkins well at her home at Extendicare Falconbridge. Although she is no longer verbal, aside from knowing yes and no, she reacted favourably when a staff member played the song “You Are My Sunshine” for her.