Muriel (Thickett) Archer turns 100
by Dorothy Dobbie
Eighteen months seems like a lifetime when you are 21 years old and in a strange town and a new province, but to Muriel Thickett and her sister Joan, it seemed like a great adventure. Plus, “The wages were good!” said Muriel on the eve of her 100th birthday. Coming from a job at the mental hospital in Portage La Prairie where the work was menial and the wages very poor, the sisters are excited to go to Fort William, Ontario, (now Thunder Bay) to work for Canadian Car which was manufacturing military aircraft. “Our job was to file metal very smoothly,” said Muriel. “I think the parts were for wings. There was a man, then a woman, then a man on the line.”
She and Joan were dedicated employees. They never missed a single day of work nor were they ever late. Their commitment throughout those last desperate days of the war effort was celebrated in the local paper. Canada’s record annual production of 4,000 military aircraft by the end of the war could not have happened without women such as Muriel and Joan who made such a heroic effort. Their work transformed Canada.
Part of the allure of the Fort William job were the good wages. By the end of the War and the end of the job, Muriel had saved almost $1,000, equivalent today to $17,000 in purchasing power! She said she spent most of it on her wedding.
At 100, Muriel is still beautiful and spry. Her lovely dark hair has very little gray – she gets it permed to keep its curl. Her nails are elegantly red. Her eyes are filled with vitality. Asked if she ever thought she would get to 100, she responded, “I don’t think about it at all!”
Muriel is one of five children born to immigrants from Barnsley in England. She was born in 1923 near Russell, Manitoba, the second eldest to her brother Albert, and followed by Joan, to whom she remained close throughout life. Then came Hilda and Janet, 14 years her junior.
As a girl on the farm at Craigie, Manitoba, they attended the local one-room schoolhouse with 24 or so other children. Commissioned in 1897, Craigie School closed in 1942 and all that remains today is a commemorative stone where it used to be. But in those days the air was filled with laughter and anticipation of the fun to come – picnics, school dances, Christmas concerts where Muriel took part in the plays and the choir. She was a good student, earning top grades and going all the way to Grade 9, which in those days was a pretty good record for a rural girl.
Growing up as the eldest girl gave Muriel a deep sense of responsibility for her siblings, and she could have a sharp tongue if they didn’t live up to their duty. Youngest sister Janet recalls her rebellion after one such lecture. Janet went and hauled the shotgun out of the closet and pointed it at Muriel. It wasn’t loaded and she didn’t know how to shoot it anyway, but it made her point. They laugh about those childhood squabbles today.
The Thickett girls were all lookers and there was no shortage of interest in pretty Muriel, who remembers having her first boyfriend at 15. His name was Harold (Bud) Bagnell, but he was only one of several. She also remembers her first kiss. It took place on a buggy ride. But she saved her life for one Eric Archer whom she met after the War. Muriel was working at Perth’s Drycleaners in Winnipeg at the time, living upstairs in a home owned by the Carvers. She and Eric met and fell in love.
“Uncle Eric had a great sense of humour,” her nephew Doyle remembers. “He was always telling jokes.” Muriel did not find it all that amusing when she had to leave the city, after enjoying life there for three years, to return to small-town living when Eric, who was also a hard worker, opened a plumbing business in Birtle. She settled in, however, kept busy raising five children over the next 20 years: Pat, Donnie, Kenny, Sharon and, 20 years later, Deanna, who was born in 1967. While this was going on Muriel always made sure she looked good for Eric every evening when he came home from work. It is not today’s way but it was not a bad way and it was part of her contribution to the family life they had chosen.
Although Eric was consumed by his business, often in the early days having to attend to midnight plumbing emergencies, they always found time to take a summer holiday – usually three weeks when they would head out with the family for adventures all over Canada and the United States. At the beginning, the adventure included staying in tents but later, they bought one of the little Winnipeg invented and manufactured fiberglass Boler Trailers. It could sleep four in comfort by converting the dining area into a double bed and using the lounge to set up two bunk beds. Remember, the children came over time so there were never five all at once.
And back home, there was still much to do – volunteering in church, going to dances and picnics and enjoying friends. Eric passed away some twenty years ago and today, Muriel has moved from their hometown to Virden, where she lives just across the street from her sister Janet, those long-ago spats forgotten. They visit often, remembering the old days and taking comfort in each other.
All these years later, Muriel can look back at the strong and united family she inherited from her parents and then produced on her own. She has nine grandchildren and stays in touch with her sisters and many of her 13 nieces and nephews.
Well done, Muriel. Congratulations on a life well lived.
Her centennial birthday celebration has been taken place on Thanksgiving weekend.
