“My mother was really the one that made us go to bed at night and she said, ‘Did you say your prayers?’” he said, recalling Sunday morning horse-and-buggy trips to church with his nine siblings.

It might have something to do with his everyday breakfast – a bowl of Rice Krispies with two pieces of toast. “I used to go to work with that,” said the longtime carpenter, who has stuck with the strict regimen to this day.

It could also be a matter of keeping occupied. Long retired, Zimmerling spends his days tending to his vegetable garden, mowing his lawn, and keeping his Shawville home impeccably tidy.

“He doesn’t sit down and let other people look after him, he wants to do everything himself,” said his son Doug Zimmerling, who was in for a visit with his father when THE EQUITY stopped by last week.

Whatever the secret is, the elder Zimmerling celebrated an important milestone this weekend surrounded by friends and family – his 100th birthday.

Less than one per cent of people worldwide live to the century mark, making Zimmerling’s journey already unlikely. But he’s also defied the odds in other ways.

Growing up on a homestead in Otter Lake (then called Leslie township) in the 1920s and 30s, his first language – and that of his siblings – was German.

“It was mostly German in the house,” he said, adding that even church services at Schwartz’s Lutheran were held in German at the time.

He has literally seen lightning strike twice, including once in his family home, and a second time at Schwartz’s Lutheran church. A bolt hit the church in the middle of a funeral service, killing his great-uncle Herman in the process, who had his feet resting on the radiator.

Five-year-old Zimmerling saw the whole scene unfold in front of him.

“I don’t know if the lightning hit me or not, but I stood at my seat and I looked across the aisle and he was lying on his back [ . . . ] and the smoke was coming out of his stomach.”

As Zimmerling got older, he started to attend a schoolhouse only a kilometre or so from his home. In those days, he would get up bright and early, get all his farm chores done, change out of his work clothes, then walk barefoot to school.

“In those days everyone was poor. We didn’t have shoes,” he said.

As a preteen he took a job in Otter Lake at the sawmill his uncle played a hand in building, but the mill was only open from 1936 until 1938. He worked other jobs in Stewartville, Ont., and Portage du Fort, but his chosen career was as a carpenter.

Zimmerling said he worked on hundreds of buildings during his long career as a contractor and later as a dedicated carpenter, but for many of them he can’t tell you where they are because in those days, “streets didn’t have names,” he said.

“I always had work,” said Zimmerling, who built community staples such as the Victoria Avenue School, Dr. S. E. McDowell Elementary, and the New Hope Church, which at that time was called the Standard Church.

“You didn’t have to kneel on Sunday, eh?” said Doug to his father. “You had enough kneeling.”

For over 30 years, Zimmerling served as the warden of Bristol’s Standard Church – a building he also played a role in renovating.

“I built the outside, the inside, the tower, everything on that,” he said.

Over the years, Zimmerling has noticed a good deal of change in Shawville and surrounding areas, and not just in its built architecture. He said it’s become more expensive to live.

“I could go and buy a lot for $200 to build your house on,” he said.

He said the faces on the street have also changed, and that lately he is seeing more unfamiliar faces in and about town. He said it’s a far cry from when he grew up.

“You knew everybody,” he said.

In the late 1960s Zimmerling and his loving wife Alma built their home on Hwy. 148 outside of Shawville, where he has lived ever since. Alma passed away in 2016, but Zimmerling continues to live a quiet life there.

When his sons come to visit, they are treated to fresh homemade soup that the 100-year-old prepares, freezes, and defrosts when he knows he’s going to have a visitor.

“He makes big pots of soup, and then he’ll put two bowls of soup in a container and then freezes them. Then at lunchtime when I come down, he throws it in the microwave,” said Doug.

A century doesn’t come without health scares. In the 1970s, Zimmerling had a workplace accident, breaking both of his legs after falling off some scaffolding. After grafting bone from his hip to his ankle, he had to re-learn how to walk.

“I had 13 screws in my leg,” he said.

Last year, Zimmerling suffered a heart attack. His family held a big birthday party last year, not knowing if he’d make it to a 100th year.

Now on the other side, Zimmerling said while he doesn’t have the solution for a long life, the Man upstairs has taken good care of him.

“I believe in who was looking after me,” he said.

As Zimmerling enters triple digits, he’s still trying new things. Just last year, his sons taught him bow hunting for the first time. This year, they’re going hunting again at the family camp up the Picanoc.

“He got a doe tag this year, [so] now three of us got it,” said Doug, who said security camera footage reveals an abundance of game animals to be hunted.

“He has no excuse, he could sit right on the deck and hunt off the deck.”

Roy Zimmerling serves up the cake at his father’s 100th birthday party, hosted on Sunday at the St. Paul’s Anglican Church hall. Photo: K.C. Jordan

Otter Lake native Elden Zimmerling is celebrating his 100th birthday this week. Here, he is pictured in his home in Shawville, which he built himself in the 1960s. Photo: K.C. Jordan

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