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Sarah Ellen (Nell) Jones

Centenarian, optimist, wife, aunt, nana. Born on Dec. 28, 1910 in Yorkshire, England; died on July 28, 2014, in Toronto, of natural causes, aged 103.

Sarah Ellen, known from childhood as Nell, was born in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, the second child of Ernest and Sarah Yates. She and her sister Evelyne were raised in a middle-class Edwardian family. As a child, Nell was kicked by a horse, leaving her deaf in one ear.

After the death of his wife in 1919, and a disastrous change in the family fortunes, her father decided to immigrate to Canada. His plan was to leave his daughters with their grandparents until he could get settled, but Nell insisted on going with him, fearful that she would never see him again. After arriving in Toronto penniless, her father found work through the Salvation Army, running a men's rooming house on Jarvis Street, but it was no place for a little girl and he had to give up that job. A few years later, Eve joined the family and they moved uptown to Davisville and Yonge, where their father ran a fish-and-chips shop.

Later, Nell got a job working at Woolworths where she met the love of her life, Bill Jones. They married in 1934 and although they had no children, she became Auntie Nellie to scores of offspring of friends and relatives. In 1942, the couple became godparents to Eve's first child, Mary-Lynne.

Bill's job with Woolworths, managing its busy lunch counters, took them across the country, to Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal and Winnipeg. They loved to entertain; when they lived in Ottawa, the Mounties thought Nell was a professional tour guide because she took so many people to Parliament Hill. They travelled all over North America and visited England. Although Bill's income was modest, their nieces saw them as the "rich aunt and uncle" because they always had a good car, smart clothes and bought the best gifts.

The 1970s were difficult years for Nell. Her sister, Eve, died of cancer in 1970. And Nell lovingly cared for Bill until four days before his death from cancer in 1978. His pension ended with his death, straining her financial situation. In 1978, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy but, made of tough British stuff, she continued to live independently.

Always one to make her own decisions, she returned to Toronto in 1986 and settled near where she and Bill had lived when they first married. She later sought more supportive surroundings in her old North Toronto neighbourhood, living at a retirement centre with family financial help. Well into her 90s, she played cards, attended symphonies and theatre, read constantly, took public transit to people watch, played minigolf and rode in a helicopter. She even met the Queen on her visit to Canada in 2010; Nell was 99 and it was one of the great thrills of her life.

As Nell's hearing, eyesight and mobility declined, her once-active world began to shrink. But she remained stoic, continued her manicures and hair appointments, and dressed well. She loved clothes.

This tiny dynamo experienced the First World War, the 1918 flu pandemic, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, rationing in the Second World War, television in the 1950s, the Swinging Sixties, the space age and computers – and cheerfully just kept on going. She was our Peter Pan.

Well done, Auntie. Well done.

Mary-Lynne Morgan and Bev Simpson are Nell's nieces.

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