OXFORD — The Board of Selectmen presented the town’s oldest citizen with a certificate and the Boston Post Cane on Thursday, just three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
Margaret Russell, 99, enjoyed birthday cake and coffee Thursday as dozens of her family members came for the celebration. Russell told the board she wasn’t told of the celebration beforehand and had wondered why her family brought her to the selectmen’s meeting.
“It’s a big surprise,” she said. “I didn’t know what we were coming here for,” she said.
The cane comes from the Boston Post newspaper, whose owner in 1909 sent gold-tipped canes to the largest New England towns to present to their oldest residents. The town keeps the cane in a display case.
Russell thanked the board. “I can’t think of anything nicer,” she said, with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren around her.
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