She’s seen two world wars and man land on the moon. As Canada’s oldest person turns 111, here’s what still makes her laugh - Toronto Star

Toronto's Marie Rosa was born on Sept. 17, 1915, and was crowned Canada's oldest person earlier this year. So what's her secret? 

Marie Rosa, Canada’s oldest living person, turns 111 years old on Sept. 17. Her daughter Cathie Sinisalo, left, is 71.

Cathie Sinisalo unzips the suitcase and begins sorting through its contents. She flips aside the childhood photos, the binder of birthday cards and the congratulatory letters from Doug Ford and Mark Carney.

She picks up a dusty gold frame and props it against a nearby chair. “This,” she says casually, already moving to the next object, “is from the Pope.”

The congratulations are not for Sinisalo but her mother, who sits in a wheelchair nearby. Marie Rosa, swaddled by a crocheted blanket and drifting in and out of sleep, is the oldest person in Canada. She turns 111 on Thursday.

She was born on Sept. 17, 1915, the fourth of 12 children of Italian immigrants and the first to be born in Canada. She has called Toronto home practically her entire life; now, home for her is The Village of Humber Heights, a retirement home near Lawrence Avenue West and Weston Road. She spends her days sleeping, eating and resting in her room.

Companion Lynn Grace attends to Marie Rosa at The Village of Humber Heights. 

What is the secret? Is there a daily routine, or a dietary trick, or a particularly profound perspective on life that got her here, celebrating 111 years with cake and coffee in a first-floor lounge?

Sinisalo, 71, is just as surprised as anyone that life has led her mother — or her, for that matter — here.

“I can’t compare it to anything else,” she said. “Awesome. But it’s tiring. And stressful. It’s a good stress, and it’s a bad stress sometimes.”

Rosa’s father lived to be nearly 105. Sinisalo thought she would never see anyone older. She started throwing birthday celebrations for Rosa when she turned 89, worried that Rosa’s health issues at the time meant she was nearing the end.

She has thrown more than 20 celebrations since then.

Rosa was born during the First World War, 12 years after the Wright brothers first took flight and six years before the discovery of insulin. She was in her 20s when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb; she had already turned 53 when man landed on the moon. At the turn of the millennium, she was 84.