Life on the Ball Road – Don Lee still at home after 102 years

Jeff Green | Oct 06, 2021

Donald Lee was one of the people who were featured in a series we ran in the Frontenac News to mark the 100th anniversary of Frontenac County. He was 95 when we ran the first of a two-part story on May 28, 2015.

At the time, Don was still living in the home on the Ball Road in what used to be Hinchinbrooke Township and is now Central Frontenac. The Lee property borders St. Andrews Lake. Seven years later, he has just turned 102, and he is still living at home.

At the beginning of our interview in 2015, he said he was blind in one eye, had trouble hearing, and his memory was not what it used to be. When I re-visited him last month, he said the same thing. But in 2015, his claims about his poor memory seemed to me to be much exaggerated, and even now, he still comes alive when recounting some of the events that have made his life remarkable.

In his youth, he worked on the farm for his father, and when his father died of pneumonia when he was still a teenager, the responsibility to support his family fell on his shoulders. One memory stands out for him about his father’s death, however, and it reveals something about what was most important to him.

As his father was on his death bed with pneumonia, Don told him that he had started dating Gladys Reynolds from Bellrock.

“I figured he would be happy for me, and he tried to say something to me but he was having so much trouble talking that he could not get the words out. He was very frustrated by that, and I really wanted to hear what he had to say, but I never did. He died a day or two later.”

Don and Gladys got married not long after that, and they remained married for 71 year until Gladys died in 2011.

With his father gone and the responsibility for the farm falling to him, Don Lee was deemed ineligible for the army.

Money remained very tight during and right after the war, but there were opportunities. A year or two after the war, Don went hunting with some friends to a cabin on Crown land northeast of Ompah in the Lavant area. The hunting was good, and during the two weeks they were there, Don noticed there were many beavers in the area.

“There were no beavers back home in those days because everyone was farming,” he recalls.

Don, and two other men, went back up to the cabin right after hunting season and trapped beaver and muskrat. Beaver pelts were in high demand, and they sold the pelts, including the pelt from one massive beaver, for over $900.

“My wife was going to Verona and I gave her our share, it was over $300 anyway, to bring to the bank. She told me that when she got there and they all started counting the money to put into our account, they asked where she had come up with all that money. They thought maybe we had robbed a bank ourselves.”

The Lees moved to Ottawa where the wages were good for carpenters, 95 cents an hour. Five years later, Gladys suggested they should move back to the farm on Ball Road to raise their children. They had 5 children, and except for Robert, who has died, the other 4 are still involved in Don’s life. They take turns spending time with him so he can continue living on his own.

Don worked in construction, and started his own construction company in the late 1960’s, which he ran successfully until he retired. In the early 1970s he got involved in municipal politics, serving as councillor, deputy reeve and reeve in Hinchinbrook. He was the warden of Frontenac County in 1988 and retired from politics, undefeated, he is quick to point out, in 1993.

What sustained Don Lee in his marriage, his working life, his political career, and as he has aged, is assuming the best of people.

“When I needed help, my neighbours were there, and when others needed help, I was there.”

Living, as he now does, in the century farmhouse where he was raised, with family around him all of the time, you could say he is blessed, pay back for all that he has done.

His only true regret is that he does not have Gladys still with him.