Family celebrates great grandmother’s 99th birthday from a distance

Her granddaughter Kelda Henry contacted to the News Letter this week to ask if we could help in making the near-centenarian’s birthday a memorable one in spite of the strict distancing guidelines imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Margaret, a great grandmother known to many as Wilkie, has been a resident at Weavers Care Home in Cookstown for the past five years.

Kelda said: “Granny is a real character and likes to keep us all in line. We are so sorry that we can’t spend time with her on Thursday.

“We’re looking forward to lockdown being over so we can take her out to celebrate. Before this happened we’d see her all the time.

“We can still go to visit her but it’s not what you’d call a proper visit. I live a couple of miles outside Cookstown so if I was going into town for essentials I would call by.

“If she’s at the window she’ll come over. She opens the window and we can shout up.”

Margaret Wilkinson is the eldest of seven children, born and raised in Drumshambo, outside Cookstown. She has one remaining sibling – Willie, 91.

In her younger days Margaret worked in Belfast, making hats, and also in Nestles Milk Factory in Omagh.

She cycled between Cookstown and Omagh when she worked in Nestles, leaving home on a Sunday evening and stayed over until closing time on Friday.

Margaret and her husband Billy, who passed away just after her 60th birthday, had one child – Audrey.

Kelda, who is Audrey’s daughter, said: “Granny has always been a keen church attender. In her younger days, she attended Kildress Parish Church on the outskirts of Cookstown. In her latter years she moved to Derryloran Parish church in Cookstown.

“Granny loved to drive a Mini and had lots of different colours. Prior to getting a Mini, and after using a bicycle, she rode a Vespa scooter.

“She always loved animals and she bred Jack Russells for many years.

“After my Granda’s death in April 1981, she moved from the family farm at Ballygroogan to Jubilee Park. She spent many happy years there before moving into Weavers Care Home in 2015.

Kelda added: “Granny was a keen bowler and loved to play indoor and outdoor bowls. She also spent many years volunteering for Age Concern, often visiting the elderly while she herself was in her eighties.”

Kelda said her Granny reads the News Letter every day and it would be the perfect birthday present for her to appear in the News Letter.

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