When Florence Morris needs to make a bit of time pass, the 108-year-old enjoys gazing at faded photographs of long-lost loved ones and reliving the stories of their lives.

There’s her father, the Rolls-Royce mechanic and horse jockey; her mother, the self taught seamstress who had been raised to be a lady but eloped with a man she met while working in a local bar; an infant sister so frail she was carried on a pillow; and Morris, a chubby cheeked baby in a baptism gown who came into the world shortly before the coronation of King George V.

“They are all true. I think of all the things that have happened to them,” says Morris, speaking with the Star at the Seniors’ Health Centre in North York a few days after her 108th birthday on May 25.

The momentous event was marked by a modest party, organized by her younger daughter Susan Cianchino, 74, and attended by about 17 guests at the health centre where Morris has resided for about two years.

When asked what it feels like to be 108, Morris answers with the patience and precision of somebody who has been asked the same question countless times. “It feels the same as it does when I was 100,” she says.

Fiercely independent, Morris lived alone until the age of 105 — the last three decades in an apartment complex for seniors in Markham — until a series of falls prompted her doctor to instruct her to move into the health centre, part of North York General Hospital, where she could get more care.

The more common question, she says, is what is her secret. “How did you live so long and that sort of thing,” she says. “It is just natural,” or natural for her for whatever reason, she notes.

One thing she doesn’t care for is the management of day-to-day tasks, she explains, how simple things like dressing properly and organizing her things have become more difficult. Though, she says, a bit of lost mobility is to be expected.

“What do you expect about being 108? You don’t expect everything to last forever.”

Florence Norah Wickson was born on May 25, 1911 in Somerset, England, and would be the eldest of four children raised by a couple who, considering the times, met and married in a rather unconventional way.

Morris’s mother Elsie had been born into a well off family but her fortunes took a turn after her father died of Tuberculosis at a very early age, she says.

That meant taking a part-time job as a bar maid to earn money for her and her widowed mother. There, she met William, who would literally sweep her off her feet, and later worked as a Rolls-Royce mechanic.

“He was there every time he could because he loved her, you see.”

Eventually she got pregnant and the couple eloped, she said.

A gift of a gold locket, she recalled, was a key detail in what would have been a rather scandalous affair.

“That is what father bought mother to make her run away with him, I expect,” she says.

Morris was quickly followed by a little sister, a frail baby born 18 months later, then two brothers.

“They carried her on a cushion because she was so delicate. She was beautiful. You can see from the picture she was a beautiful child.”

That picture, one of the ones on the wall, is a family portrait of the couple and their two girls.

While her mother never took sewing lessons, Morris says she made beautiful clothing for her and her girls and despite raising a family with little experience always maintained a tidy and sophisticated appearance complete with beautiful hats.

“That was quick for somebody who had never had any family before. I used to worry about her and wonder how she dealt with us.”

Morris met her own husband, Herbert (Bertie) Morris, during an annual fair in Oxford, England, while she was riding a wooden carousel, in the early 1930s. “He came and sat on the back of the horse I was riding,” said Morris, who was about 20 at the time and working in a bank. She wasn’t immediately bowled over “but I loved him very much.”

Their marriage in 1935 was a small affair and Morris wore a new three-quarter length fur coat over her brown wool suit. “I think I saved up and bought it myself,” she says of the coat.

Much of their married life included running an inn called The Fishes Inn in North Hinksey, which the Oxford Mail — who for the last several years has published stories celebrating the long life of the former local — reported the couple took over from her father-in-law and operated from 1949 until Bertie’s death in 1962.

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Morris told the Star the inn allowed her to meet and learn about all kinds of people, something she enjoyed.

“People are only too anxious to tell you all of their blessings,” she says.

About a year after Bertie died, Morris and daughter Cianchino immigrated to Canada, coming by ship and landing in Quebec City. Cianchino stayed and Morris went back and forth several times before returning to stay at the age of 63. Cianchino’s sister, Jane Hills, 82, remains in England.

Among her entire brood, Morris counts three living grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Cianchino and her husband, Sal, who recently died, had Adam, who with wife Brenda has two children, Alexander and Jessica. Cianchino and Sal were also parents to Charles, who is father to Austin and Aidan. Hills and husband Peter were parents to David, who died, and Charlotte who with husband Gareth are parents to Jenny, Millie and Grace.

After moving to Canada, Morris worked in a string of Toronto banks, including the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then the National Bank of Canada until she retired at the age of 72.

“I was quite happy working. That was the sort of person I was ... I liked the idea that everything had to balance at the end of the day.”

Retiring from the financial world meant more time to learn new things and she picked up lawn bowling. “I was good at that,” she says, in her 80s, and she began painting around the same time, as well as playing golf.

Reaching a remarkable age has certainly meant some adjustments, she says. One pleasure, reading the daily papers, is no longer an option and she no longer keeps up with political and world events on television.

“For one thing my eyesight is very poor. As you get older these things wear out. I listen to the radio and I knit,” she says. “I find it very consoling. Knitting. I like it.”

When asked what she is looking forward to next she is, as she was throughout an hour long conversation, concise and frank.

Dying, she says, noting she intends to be cremated.

“I think I’ve been long enough here,” Morris says, adding that clearly God is not ready for her yet.

“I was a very satisfied person because I had plenty to eat and drink and somebody to look after me. I used to think I was lucky, but I was certainly wondering what it was like after you died because nobody came back to tell you.”

She says the birthday party organized by her daughter was a lovely affair, expressing a sincere thanks from her and her entire family to all those who attended and sent cards, plants and well wishes.

Her daughter, asked what it is like having a mother reach 108, says to her family it is not remarkable, because it is just their lives. “She has just always been there,” she says, noting that her mother is receiving excellent care at the centre.

When the day does come, she and her mother have a deal — Morris must send some kind of sign letting her family know everything is OK.

“I am going to,” Morris promises.

“I expect a flower will bloom or something,” her daughter says.

Morris agrees. “If it is possible.”

Correction - June 3, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled Somerset, a county in England.