She believed the keys to a long life included faith, honesty and a positive attitude.
Jennie Sutherland passed away March 15, 2018. For the six living generations to which Jennie was matriarch, the youngest being seven or eight, to have had as much time with her as her children, grandchildren and others had was a boon that son Charlie Sutherland says was not taken for granted.
“To the best of our knowledge, at the time of her death she was the oldest person in the area,” Charlie told the Barrhead Leader March 16, noting he had tried to find out whether Jennie was the oldest person in the province but could not independently verify that claim.
“She set the bar pretty high regardless. There’s roughly 180 people in our family tree, including spouses and children, and having six generations alive at the same time, that’s not something that happens all too often. We’ve been lucky in that we haven’t lost too many of our family members over the years. For the pallbearers, we’ll be having one grandson from each of the seven siblings and one of my sister’s daughter’s will be handling the eulogy,” Charlie said.
With illnesses and diseases, some people lose their parents early on but Charlie said his family was lucky. “You spend all of your life learning how to be independent and then you move into a lodge or something like it and find yourself becoming dependent but she held on to that spirit of independence right to the end,” he said.
Sutherland was a founding member of the Barrhead Museum. In addition, she witnessed two major world wars, the Great Depression and the advent of the Internet since her birth in 1906.
