Olga Code: Never too old to travel

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Published on Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Submitted Photos. Olga Code atop a camel during her trip into the Sahara Desert.

By Tony Eu

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Describing Olga Code as an adventurous spirit would be an understatement. Although she has lived her entire life in Manitoba, since retiring, Code has traveled around the world and seen more than most can even imagine. But before taking a look at her years of travel and adventure, we need to take a look at her years growing up and what she’s doing now.

“I was born in Beaver, Manitoba, which is probably non-existent today, because there wasn’t too much there in those days,” Code said. Born in 1921, she lived in Beaver for eight years, before her family moved to Makinak. There, she attended high school until Grade 11.

“The school at Makinak… only went to Grade 11, so I had to go somewhere else to take Grade 12,” Code explained, “and the other girl, there was only two girls in our class, the rest were all boys, she was going to St. Norbert. So I said, ‘I have to go somewhere,’ so I went there too.”

“Growing up in a little place, there isn’t much excitement except in what you make for yourself,” Code remarked, “So we played with the other children in town, went to school everyday, of course, stayed at home with the family and that sort of thing.”

One of the things Code did do growing up was visit her grandmothers.

“We always owned a car, as long as I can remember, but in those days we didn’t travel,” Code said. “I don’t really recall going too far away, excepting one or two trips to the lake… and we always had a trip to grandma’s place, which was a couple hours drive to one grandma. The other grandma’s place was farther than that and we used to go at least once a year.”

When World War II broke out, Olga was in her grade 12 year, attending school in St. Norbert.

“I was sitting in my classroom and the teacher came in and announced that war had been declared,” Olga said about finding out about the war.

First taste of travel

The war years didn’t have a substantial, direct impact on Code’s life. During those years, she finished high school, attended teachers’ college and began teaching. In between finishing her education and starting her career, Code also did a bit of travelling, going to the [Canadian] east coast with her sister when she was 19, in 1940. Her first taste of travel, however, was two years prior, in 1938.

“Other than just short trips around Manitoba, my first trip, to British Columbia, was when I was 17 years old. That was when I had my first airplane ride,” Code commented.  “It was in a two-seater, which was open to the elements; it was just the pilot and me. My brother, my oldest brother, was in the air force and [my sister] and I went to BC and he took us out to the airport and we had a ride. My first airplane ride, in a two-seater,” she added.

After those brief trips though, travelling would take a back seat in Code’s life for decades, while she focused on her career and her family.

Code started teaching in 1941, in a small school called Mossvale, just outside of Grandview. The year after, she taught in the Keld district, south of Dauphin. The second year working there, she got married to Peter Code. At that time, Peter was stationed in Fort Osborne in Winnipeg.

“So, at the end of June, I went to Winnipeg. I taught Grade 5 to 8 at St. Charles school,” Code said.

Moving to the farm

When World War II ended, Olga started teaching at a country school south of McCreary, where her husband was originally from. Her husband, however, wasn’t discharged until the spring of 1946, as he worked the quartermaster store.

“He had to stay there until the other soldiers came back from wherever they were stationed, so that he could take their supplies or give out what he had to,” Code mentioned.

When Peter was discharged and returned to Canada in 1946, the Codes bought a farm and moved out to it.

Olga Code and her husband, Peter Code.

“We lived on the farm, more than one farm, but we lived on [farms] until 1968,” Olga mentioned.

Once they had moved to the farm, Olga left the country school and started teaching at the school in McCreary. She worked there for two years before taking some time off to raise two children.

At the start of the school year in 1954, Code returned to teaching. She retired in 1982, at 60 years old, with 35 years of teaching experience.

“I’ve taught lots of professionals. I’ve taught doctors, I’ve taught a lawyer, I’ve taught a preacher, I’ve taught a school superintendent, lots of nurses and teachers,” Code said about all the different people she’s taught. “I’ve taught a jockey, actually,” she added, “He won the Queen’s Plate in Toronto one year.” 

Once retired, Code had more free time, which she filled by helping community organizations, gardening, playing cards, quilting, hiking, golfing, fishing, cross country skiing and of course, travelling.

Filling the time

Nowadays, most of Code’s time is spent quilting.

“I belong to the quilt guild and I also quilt with the girls at the drop-in centre. We have a quilt room there and we quilt two days a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. So I do that besides what I do at home,” Code explained. Continuing, she said, “The quilts I make, I’ve given most of them away. I’ve sold a lot, but I’ve also made enough quilts for my children, my grandchildren and now my great grandchildren.” In fact, she’s just finished making two quilts for her two great-grandchildren living in the Czech Republic.

For Code, her love of quilt making started early on. “I remember making a quilt when I was at home, when I was a teenager,” she noted. It’s also a multi-generational hobby, as her mother was also a quilter.

Code also mentioned that she sells her quilts as well, though not many people know that she does.

Another hobby that Code took up to occupy her newfound time was fishing, a hobby she excelled at, being recognized as a master angler for Tullibee, Whitefish and Goldeye.

“I fished a lot,” Code stated. “ My biggest walleye pickerel, we took it down to get it weighed and it was two ounces out [from being a trophy fish]. My biggest jackfish, it came up to my waist,” she remarked. Looking through the pictures she had, we found the jackfish in question, with a note scribbled on the back of the picture, stating the fish was three feet long.

With her extra time, Code also got involved in community organizations. She was a church treasurer for 16 years; she was involved with the drop-in centre from the beginning, first as the treasurer, then later on as the president, then vice-president and now as a membership convener. She was also the treasurer for the heritage committee and part of the visitation group for the United Church Women. She also sang with the McCreary choir for about 30 years.

Additionally, Code plays cribbage at the legion every week, as well as whist every once in a while. She even participated in the Manitoba 55 Plus Games, winning medals in the cribbage event.

Retired? It’s time to travel

“Most of my travelling… wasn’t when I was working. When I was younger, I said I went coast to coast, but most of my travelling… was after I retired,” Code explained. “I retired early, because I figured I’d been meeting my husband on the street, coming and going, long enough,” she added.

When asked about where she’s traveled, Code responded, “I’ve been across [Canada] many, many times. I’ve been by car, by train, by bus and by plane. I’ve been to Churchill. I think I’ve been through, or in, or visited, about 40 of the States.” And the list doesn’t end there. “I’ve been in the Caribbean, I’ve been in several cruises and I’ve been on most of the islands there as well a couple countries in South America, Venezuela and Columbia and we took a month tour of Europe,” she added.

Code’s impressive list doesn’t end there either. She has also travelled to Turkey, Morocco, Australia, New Zealand and Vatican City.

All of this after retiring and over the age of 60.

Travels in the Middle East

Code’s daughter, like her mother, is also a teacher. However, she took many jobs abroad, teaching in places like Turkey, Morocco, South America and China. When she was teaching at many of these places, Code would come visit.

“I spent about a month in Casablanca, in Morocco and every weekend my daughter and I, when she wasn’t working, would take these beautiful electric trains and go to some other part of the country,” Code said about one of such visits.

“My son and my granddaughter came over to Morocco while I was there and the three of us took a trip. We took a trip over the Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara desert,” Code began, recounting one story form her time in Casablanca. Continuing, she said, “When we get to the other side of the mountain, there was a place there where we had a meal and the camels were waiting for us there. So we all got on our camels and went into the desert. We spent most of the day in the desert, on the camels, which was quite an experience. It’s marvelous to see all these sand dunes and nothing but sand wherever you look. How do they know where they’re going! But we went out and they had a camp, which was way out in the desert somewhere, because we didn’t get there until evening. We stayed in this camp; they were all in tents in a sort of circle. We all slept on the sand actually, but some of them could stay in a tent if you wanted to, but you were still sleeping on the sand.”

“It was quite the interesting trip,” Code added.

While still in Morocco, Code decided she was going to go see Ephesus. “I wanted to go to Ephesus, just because I wanted to go there. You read about it in the bible and I wanted to go,” she explained. 

Olga Code sitting in front of some of the ruins in Ephesus.

“My daughter worked weekdays, so I made my own reservations. I went to [the] tourist bureau [and] got my own tour, it wasn’t tourist season for them, but they arranged a tour for me, just me. I had my own tour guide, my own bus driver, it was just a small bus, but I was the only one there. They took me, alone,” Code said, reliving the adventure. “So we went to Ephesus and I saw all the old cites and then we went to the amphitheater where St. Paul used to preach. That was really, really something,” she said, continuing her story. “It is a huge, huge place. Then they took me up to the top of some sort of hill where any ordinary bus wouldn’t be able to go, but we were in a small one, we could go up there and look all around.”

Code went on, saying, “Then we went to a place called Pamukkale and there they have a hot springs sort of thing, but this water is all full of calcium. People bathe in it, it’s supposed to be healthy and it’s warm. Then it overflows on a big cliff… and as it spreads out over the flat part and goes down the cliff the calcium solidifies and it’s all in white shapes. It’s just beautiful, all the white cliffs of calcium.”

The European adventure

“Europe was a very good tour. We stayed for a week in London, then we went to the continent and went to all these different countries,” Code remarked. “I was in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, France, Austria, Monaco, England and Italy,” she noted, “We were on a tour; when you’re touring, you see all the cathedrals, all the zoos, all the important building in all the places.”

Code also visited the Netherlands, specifically Amsterdam, while on the your. Of that portion of the trip, she comment, “We stayed in Amsterdam for two or three days. We saw Ann Frank’s house, cruised down the Rhine, saw them make cheese, saw them make wooden shoes.” Continuing, she added, “Every night we would be entertained by some local people or we went to the theatre or something like that.”

During the trip, Code also went into the Swiss Alps. “We went up Mount Titlis, I think it was at that time the highest lookout point in the Swiss Alps,” Code shared. “We went up on the bus as far as we could go. Then we went on a cogwheel railroad that took us up another distance and then we got on a chair lift. We went higher and [then] another chairlift and up and then another chair[lift]. Three different chairlifts before we got up that high,” she said, detailing their ascent up the just over 3,000m mountain.

Another stop on their tour was Italy. While there, they saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, visited the Venetian canals and took a trip to the Vatican.

“I rode in the gondolas in Venice. There were several gondolas, but we had a beautiful baritone singer in our gondola and he was singing for us. That was really something to see,” Code said.

As for the visit to the Vatican, she shared this story, “I saw [Pope Benedict] in the Vatican. We were lucky enough to be there on the day that he was coming out to the square to talk to everybody. I wanted to take his picture and all these people were leaving, the whole square was filled with people, but they were starting to go. The pope was still sitting up there and the guards said no, I couldn’t go up there. So I went back and went up the other aisle and I got up there and I took his picture. So I’ve got a picture of the pope.”

Summing up the entire European tour, Code said, “We had a marvellous, marvellous trip.”

Throughout the years, Code has visited every continent, except for Antarctica.

Life back home

Having just turned 95 she definitely isn’t as adventurous as she was, though her travelling days aren’t quite over.

“I travelled a lot, but now unless my daughter goes… I don’t want to go alone, so I don’t go as much as I used to,” Code explained. “Three years ago we went to Newfoundland but there were four of us girls here in Neepawa that went and two years ago we went to Alaska, but last year they didn’t want to go. This year, nobody mentioned going. I’m trying to persuade them to go, but nobody seems to want to take me up on it,” she remarked. 

That all being said, she mentioned as well that she just got back from a trip to Halifax, showing that her adventurous spirit is still far from extinguished.

Olga Code’s stories of her travels alone could make a book, not to mention all her stories from years of teaching, fishing, biking, hiking and simply experiencing the world for 95 years.

“I did a lot of things, I don’t remember half of them myself, that’s why I’ve got all this,” Code said, referring to the binders and folders full of pictures, stories and experiences. When all is said and done, Olga Code has definitely done a lot.