Claire Cruickshank and Betty McTaggart: In their 90s and still BFFs

Each month, generations reporter Ann Hui takes readers along to hang out with fascinating Canadians – regular people and celebrities, teens to seniors – joining them in their favourite pastime for up-close and candid conversations.

There are a lot of things that Claire Cruickshank, 94, has trouble remembering these days. It takes her a while to recall important dates and other details – what year she did what and when.

But there’s one thing she has no trouble remembering at all. As soon as she hears the first few notes of the song, she can sing every word by heart.

“Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money. Maybe we’re ragged and funny.” She was singing on a recent weekday afternoon. “We’ll travel along, singin’ a song. Side by side.”

The song was Side By Side, sung by Kay Starr, and seated next to her on the couch, singing and bobbing along, was Betty McTaggart, her best friend of more than 75 years.

The two women first met as 19-year-olds, living across the hall from one another as nursing students in B.C. They’ve managed to remain, for more than seven decades since, the best of friends. And now they’re back living across the hall from one another – only now, rather than a student residence, they’re in an Uxbridge, Ont., retirement residence.

Around the world, experts have declared loneliness a global epidemic – linked with an increased risk of dementia, mood disorders, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – and, according to one well-known study, the health-risk equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes each day.

Here in Canada, the problem is especially acute among two groups: Young people (between the ages of 15-24) and older adults. Older adults just like Betty and Claire. It’s a problem – loneliness – that medical experts and policy makers alike have struggled to understand.

But these ladies have had no problem with it. These days, the two women are together just about every single day. It takes less than 20 steps to walk between their apartments. They’re surrounded by other friends they’ve made at the retirement centre, too, who eat their meals together and take chair-yoga classes together. They play euchre together twice a week, and then bridge another night of the week.

So what’s the secret to their friendship?

Claire, who’s always been the quieter, shyer one – Thelma to Betty’s Louise – spoke first.

“We just liked each other,” she said. “It’s simple as that.”

Betty chimed in. “There were times, I’m sure, where we disagreed. But we got over it.”

She turned and faced her friend.

“You paid the rent on time, so you were okay.”

Still, they understand – especially from watching the younger people in their lives struggle – that friendship doesn’t always come so easily to everyone.

“I think the generations are so different,” Betty said. “When we were forming friendships, we didn’t have the same distractions.”

The two were on the couch in the billiards room at Aspira Douglas Crossing, the retirement centre where they live. They were killing time before a chair exercise class, huddled over old photos and reminiscing about the mischief they’d gotten into over the years.

There’s been a formula to their friendship, it seems. Part of it was good luck. But there were other important elements, too.

“I think you look for somebody that you can trust,” Betty said. “And a sense of humour. A sense of adventure.”

This latter point has been, in many ways, the secret ingredient. Over the years, one of them would have an idea. For an adventure, or a bit of fun. And the other would say yes. This dynamic was set early on in their friendship, after meeting as students in New Westminster, B.C. “It was clear,” Betty said – describing Claire – “that she was going to be a lot of fun.”

On one evening, that included explosions. Betty’s uncle, who lived in California, decided it would be a good idea to send some firecrackers to her student residence. And one of them – either Betty or Claire, depending who you ask – decided it would be a good idea to set them off inside.

“They went bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” Betty said. “And everyone came running.”

“We got hell for that,” Claire said.

After graduation, after they began living together as roommates, there were other high jinks, too. “Foolish things,” Claire said.

They hitchhiked together. Drove off across the country together, twice. Moved back and forth from Vancouver to Toronto, twice. Worked as nurses together. Worked as flight attendants together. And then this is where the luck part comes in: In Toronto, the two women started dating – and eventually marrying – another set of best friends. Betty dated Bruce. And Claire began dating Bruce’s best friend since Grade 11, Don.

Even after both women started families of their own, they kept finding reasons to spend time together. They’d play golf together. Bridge together. Get together for dinner and a movie. They kept saying yes to each other.

Three years ago, after Betty’s husband Bruce passed, she decided to move into the Uxbridge retirement residence. A year and a half after that, Claire’s husband, Don, passed, too. So she decided to move into the same residence. Across the hall from one another again after all these years.

“Claire’s been such an integral part of my life. I kind of feel like we need each other,” Betty said. “Nothing ever fills in the loss of your husband. But it’s so nice to have her, to have someone I trust,” she said. “We can say anything to each other.”

Sometimes they can be found chatting in the billiards room. Other times they sit outside and enjoy the sun in silence. Other times still, they’re singing together, just like they did all those years ago – the Kay Starr song they’d play on road trips, or hum in the hallways at work. It’s become their theme song – a song they can sing together, even as other memories begin to fade.

At the end of the song, Betty said she hoped that stories like theirs might somehow be helpful to younger generations.

“I can see that young people today do need some help in making friendships.”

But it really doesn’t have to be difficult, Claire added. “Friendships become friendships because you like somebody, and you want to see them again,” she said.

“And we’ve just seen each other again, and again, and again.”