{"id":905709,"date":"2026-09-22T19:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905709\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T19:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:54:10","slug":"centenarian-loving-life-in-vernon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905709\/","title":{"rendered":"Centenarian loving life in Vernon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>              Centenarian loving life in Vernon<\/p>\n<p class=\"pubStamp\">Published 10:30 am Tuesday, September 22, 2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"author\">\n                    By Roger Knox\/Vernon Morning Star\n                                      <\/p>\n<p>Like she doesn\u2019t already have enough fun as one of the oldest living citizens in B.C.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Vernon\u2019s Ethel Dover \u2013 106 years young \u2013 has a new weapon in her amusement arsenal:<\/p>\n<p>A Nerf gun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s quite the mean shot,\u201d marvelled Kim Magarvey, general manager at Dover\u2019s home, the Aspira Orchard Valley Retirement residence, in downtown Vernon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s also an avid reader and funny as heck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Born April 8, 1920 in Winnipeg, Dover is being mentioned to help honour National Centenarian Day Tuesday, Sept. 22.<\/p>\n<p>She moved west at age 21 and, not long after her arrival in B.C, made a solo bicycle trip from Vernon to Vancouver. It was a journey that took nearly a week along a partially completed highway.<\/p>\n<p>At age 23, Dover joined the Vancouver Climbing Club and scaled the legendary North Shore Mountains peaks known as The Lions. That was long before the established hiking trails and climbing routes that dot the area today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vernonmorningstar.com\/2025\/04\/09\/video-105-cards-exceeded-for-vernon-womans-105th-birthday\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">For the occasion of her 105th birthday in 2025<\/a>, Orchard Valley put out a call to have people send Dover birthday cards, hoping to reach 105 cards.<\/p>\n<p>Dover received 155 cards from people from Victoria to New Brunswick. <\/p>\n<p>Technically, there were 156 cards. One came attached with a bouquet of roses, delivered to Dover at Orchard Valley from the senders, B.C. Emergency Health Services \u2013 Ambulance, courtesy of paramedic Jeff Moorhouse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope I don\u2019t ever need your services,\u201d said Dover upon the delivery.<\/p>\n<p>She still has plenty to say about life, longevity and what really matters. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.aspiralife.ca\/celebrating-105-years-lessons-from-ethel-a-remarkable-centenarian\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Her advice is simple<\/a>: \u201cMake the most out of life. Have a quality life, cherish your friends and family, and always be kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to globalissues.org, there are 672,000 centenarians worldwide, with nearly two-thirds living in more developed regions.<\/p>\n<p>Japan has the most with 126,000, nearly double that of the United States, ranked No. 2 with 77,000.<\/p>\n<p>Rounding out the top-five are China (53,000), Indian (43,000), and France (35,000).<\/p>\n<p>Canada is ranked No. 13, with 15,000 residents aged 100 and older.<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority of centenarians are women.<\/p>\n<p>In Japan, women make up nearly 90 per cent of centenarians, and in the U.S., nearly 80 per cent of those over 100 were women.<\/p>\n<p>The oldest documented centenarian to have ever lived is France\u2019s Jeanne Calment, who died at the age of 122 years and 164 days, her life spanning from 1875 to 1997.<\/p>\n<p>The man who lived the longest was Japan\u2019s Jiroemon Kimura, 116 years and 54 days (1897 to 2013).<\/p>\n<p>According to Canada\u2019s 2021 Census, there were 1,515 centenarians in B.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Centenarian loving life in Vernon Published 10:30 am Tuesday, September 22, 2026 By Roger Knox\/Vernon Morning Star Like&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[903,49,48,79004,87674],"class_list":["post-905709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-okanagan","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}