Gwen Leonard (Campsall) Looks Back On Her Century

Jeff Green | Jul 25, 2013

On July 19, Gwen Leonard celebrated her 100th birthday, surrounded by her large family at the Arbour Heights Long Term Care Residence in Kingston.

She is in a wheelchair much of the time now, mostly for her balance, but she can still get around pretty well and she continues to live an active life.

Gwen Leonard spent her first 93 years, with one relatively short exception, in her home town of Hartington, and before leaving the village in 2006 to enter a nursing home, she presented some reminiscences of life in Hartington to the Harrowsmith Women’s Institute.

She talked about the origin of her farm, much of which is still run by her son Bob.

“My great grandfather, William Campsall, came to the area in 1817 … He purchased the farm on the north side of Boyce Road from a man by the name of Clow … In the early 1870’s the CPR railroad leased land from the farm, just east of Boyce Road, for 99 years to build the railroad. The train became known as the Kick and Push.”

When Gwen Campsall was 12 or 13 she began to take the train each day to KCI school in Kingston. The trip took 40 minutes but during parts of the year it also meant changing time zones because Kingston was on Daylight Savings time while the rural areas stuck to Standard Time year round. In grade 10 she started to attend the new high school in Sydenham. She would get to Harrowsmith on the train, and then would ride with Phil Roberts, an undertaker, in his “dead wagon”, which had no windows and was sometimes late because a body had to be delivered first; but she never seemed to mind.

She played piano when she was young and particularly enjoyed playing softball, even if it meant a walk back and forth to Harrowsmith to the ball field.

Hydro came to Hartington in 1929, and Gwen recalls turning on all the lights on the first night.

“We were so excited, but then dad said, ‘If you’re not using the lights, turn them off. History repeats itself.”

Gwen married Keith Leonard, who opened a garage in Hartington in 1936, only to close it four years later when he went to war. After the war, in 1947, Keith opened Leonard Fuels.

“At first it was a garage and lunch counter, and then fuel oils and Case machinery were added,” Gwen recalled. Gwen ran the lunch counter, as well as keeping home for four children, Margaret (Pritchard) Ray, Reg and Bob. The business is still in the family.

Later Gwen worked at Kingston General Hospital, in the kitchen at first, and eventually spent 20 years as a clerk in the pediatric ward.

She was a long-time member of the Harrowsmith Women’s Institute, and was active running the choir and Sunday school at the Hartington United Church for many years until it “was closed, on May 25, 1968 amid much stress and turmoil,” she recounted.

For Gwen the church will always be remembered. She remembers its 50th anniversary in 1923.

“I remember hearing the men talking about how they built the church. In the Harrowsmith Banner afterwards there was a picture and a poem that I have had since I was 9 years of age:

Only a little country church 
By the side of a village street, 
Behind it stands broad fields of grain 
And the meadow still and sweet. 
In simple dignity it stands, 
On Portland’s highest sod, 
That ploughmen turning their rich land, 
May not forget their God."

Her reminiscences concluded: "We have had in Hartington, sad times and good times, but Hartington has been a good place to live for the past 93 years.

Gwen Leonard has 35 grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, and many of them were with her last week to celebrate her 100th birthday.