Vancouver centenarian shares her secret to long life: ‘it’s my faith’

Many people have asked Cecilia Upton the same question this summer. (That sort of thing tends to happen when you turn 100.)

“What’s your secret for a long life?” 

The Vancouver centenarian, a parishioner at Holy Family, is happy to answer yet again: “It’s my faith. Our Blessed Lord, we can’t take one step in front of the other without his help.”

Upton’s trust in God has carried her far during her 100 years. Born in Yorkshire, England, she recalls opening a hair salon at age 18 in the midst of the Second World War, marrying a member of the Canadian Air Force, and moving with him to start a new life in a country with vastly more trees than people.

She was one of the nearly 48,000 women who married Canadian servicemen during the war and returned with them to Canada. She moved to New Brunswick with her husband in 1945 and is one of the few war brides of that era still alive today.

Sometime during their sea voyage westward, she remembers the ship turning off its engines; enemy submarines were in the Atlantic and were trying to make it to Canada undetected.

Upton and her husband had two children. Because of his work in the air force, they moved from Prince Edward Island to Vancouver Island and everywhere in between. They ended up staying in “the right spot, in Vancouver here.”

In 1989, long before the Latin Mass Holy Family Parish was established, Upton was already helping advocate for local Catholics wishing to celebrate the traditional Mass.

She had lived through the confusing times of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, when the “major changes in the Church” made it seem like every Sunday was different. She found she missed the “beautiful, reverent” Latin Masses she was used to.

David Reid of Una Voce, the Vancouver traditional Mass society that promotes and supports the Latin Mass, said Upton been an important part of the group since it was founded in the late 1980s.

“Cecilia goes back to the very beginning.”

Una Voce helps advocate for Catholics who wish to celebrate Mass in Latin (and for Gregorian chant, polyphony, and Latin seminarians in training). In 2001, the organization applied to Archbishop Adam Exner to receive quasi-parish status. The application was a success.

Seven years later, Una Voce and the faithful who yearned for a parish to call their own rejoiced in the establishment of Holy Family Parish for the traditional Latin Mass. The parish operates under the provisions of Summorum Pontificum, a decree of Pope Benedict XVI released in 2007.

“This [Latin] Mass is reverent, it is beautiful, it is God-centred,” said Reid. “It’s one of the treasures of the Church.”

He said Upton has always been active in the tight-knit community, especially at Sunday potlucks where her cooking and hospitality would shine. Now at 100, she still attends Mass every Sunday.

“Age, in this case, is just a number. It doesn’t make any difference. She has tons of friends [in the parish], people will come up to her and talk to her, and her memory is better than mine!”

Upton’s husband passed away before Holy Family Parish became a reality. Although not a Catholic when they married, he became more appreciative of her strong faith over the years.

“Cecilia, all these years he was alive, was praying for his conversion,” said Reid. “I think she put enough medals in his pillowcase and said enough Rosaries and so on, because he was converted on his deathbed.”

But neither her husband’s death, nor the death of their son, makes the top of the list for the most difficult experience Upton has lived through.

Because her husband was not a Catholic when she was first married, Upton spent a few years away from the Church. “That was the worst part of my life,” she said.

Despite suffering through the war, she said “that’s nothing compared to losing your faith. You need a strong faith to live by.”

When she became a member of Holy Family Parish, she set her heart on helping people who had left Catholicism behind consider coming back to the Church. “That’s what I wanted to do, because I had to do that myself. I would try and encourage them to attend Mass again, which they would do. People, unless they are asked to do it, they won’t do it.”

In past years, Upton has also been an active member of the Catholic Women’s League and the Secular Franciscans and has strong devotions to St. Joseph, St. Anthony, and St. Padre Pio.

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t stop Upton’s friends from celebrating her 100th birthday. Women of the parish threw a small, private birthday party for her in June. And when they asked her for the secret to living to 100, she gave the same answer: her faith.

“Prayer is so important. I think we have so many miracles in our lives, little miracles that we don’t even see sometimes. Our blessed Lord grants these graces and miracles to us,” she said.

“I heard a little prayer a while ago: nothing can happen to me today that we can’t solve together. ‘We’ meaning our Lord and I.”

Now there’s a motto to live by.