Katherine ‘Kay’ Lawler, 101, accepts a plaque and a certificate Thursday from Mexico Town Manager Raquel Welch-Day after being named the town’s recipient of the Boston Post Cane. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times
MEXICO — Some say that laughter is the best medicine. If that’s true, it might explain why Katherine ‘Kay’ Lawler has lived as long as she has.
Lawler, who turned 101 on July 1, became the recipient of Mexico’s Boston Post Cane outside her Roxbury Road home Thursday.
Town Manager Raquel Welch-Day and selectmen Randal Canwell and Richard Philbrick made the presentation before a gathering of her family.
Lawler, who still maintains her smile and wit, brought laughter by announcing, “I don’t have a speech prepared … I am very happy to receive this cane.”
And after three or four photos were taken of the presentation, Lawler smiled and said, “Okay, that’s enough … It’s too warm to have fun. We should be drinking.”
The town also brought a fire truck for photo ops with Lawler, who joked she’d paid enough taxes over the years to pay for the engine.
Lawler, born in 1921 in Mexico, has lived in the same house for 62 years. Her husband, Lee, passed away in July 2011 at 92 years old.
“I come from the greatest generation,” Lawler said proudly. “It was the best time to live. We lived in the best of times, through the Depression, World War II.”
When her brothers went to fight in World War II, she said she went to work for the duration of the war in the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, learning about and making guns for the war.
Lawler didn’t consider herself to be traditional. “I was a wild child!”
She said she grew up during the Great Depression. “All I remember is people sharing.”
Lawler said everyone had a huge garden and shared with their neighbors in times of need.
They also had stamps for gas, which were very limited. She said her father would walk to work and he made her brothers walk to work as well because he wanted to save those stamps for someone who lived further away and couldn’t walk to work.
Lawler said then-President Franklin Roosevelt was admired.
“There was never any politics, of any kind,” she said. “Whoever was in was our president. That was it. I never heard of anyone who ever complained.”
She also displayed a silver cane, which she does not use — but it has a story.
Sister Bernadette Gautreau, Lawler’s sister, noted that when Lawler was 97, she said she had to live to be 100 because the town of Mexico “gives everybody who turns 100 a gold cane.”
In most cases, that would be true because of the age. However, Myrtle Milledge had the gold cane honor for six years, until she died this past February at the age of 106.
At Lawler’s 100th birthday party, with the gold cane unattainable at that time, her family presented her with the silver cane.
Asked about her secret for longevity, Lawler noted, “We have nothing to do with it. Let’s face it. My parents and ancestors lived to be very old. They were all healthy. Nothing wrong with me but …(pointing to her head).”
She then added it’s very important to surround yourself with people you like, and she also has a lot of family living near her.
“Have people around you that make you feel good.”
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