“Chancey” turns 100

Centenarian claims longevity due to clean living but sense of humour also a probable factor

Charles Dickson
Norway Bay August 31, 2023
The deck at John Chance’s Norway Bay cottage was bubbling with good cheer late Thursday afternoon when two dozen friends, relatives and neighbours gathered to celebrate his 100th birthday.
Moving through the throng of well-wishers, people who have come to know him through various connections over his many years, I made my way to the guest of honour right in the middle of it all.
There, seated on a deck chair amid the multiple conversations, the sipping of drinks and sampling of delights from the long buffet table, was John Chance, or ‘Chancey’ as his friends call him, sporting a Norway Bay Golf Club cap and wire-rim glasses, his face a picture of happiness.
Chance was born and raised in Ottawa. His mother had the cottage built with some inherited money in the late 1920s.
“So, I’ve been coming up here since then, as a child and all my life, so I know Norway Bay pretty well,” he says with a little chuckle that betrays his playful understatement.
Chance is one of three boys. His twin, David, has passed away, but his older brother Peter, who is 102, lives on the west coast.
Asked the cliché question about the source of his longevity, he responds “Clean living. I’ve never been in jail,” he says with a smile.
The conversation reveals a delightfully wry sense of humour and a familiar kindly voice quality that only later dawns on me as reminiscent of Canadian actor Eric Peterson’s.
During World War II, Chancey was in the navy.
“I served with great distinction, lower case ‘d’,” he jokes.
“I was a Fairmile captain. They were small ships, 114 feet, crew of 14, and we had about 50 or so in the Canadian navy, and I was the captain of one of them for quite a while. They worked out of Halifax and Sydney,” he said.
“I was married but my wife is gone, and I have no children. This guy here, Michael is my step-son,” he says, gesturing to a bearded man standing next to him.
“Thank God for Michael, he runs the place now.”
Chancey’s step-son, Michael Mace, elaborates on Chancey’s war experience.

“The Fairmiles were anti-submarine vessels,” he said, pointing to a wooden scale replica of the ship, complete with depth charges assembled along the gunwales.
“In early ‘43, he was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. German U-boats were coming into that area and, basically, shipping was stopped out of Montreal and Quebec City because it was too dangerous, and Halifax became the major port,” Mace explained.
“But these boats were there to try to keep control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and eventually they were successful, and then shipping resumed out of Montreal,” he said.
After the war, Chancey studied at Queens University, graduating from the arts faculty in 1949. After another stint with the naval reserves, he went to work in personnel for Dupont in various of its offices and plant locations.
Chancey now lives in Oakville and spends the months of June through September at his Norway Bay cottage.
“You look out there and it’s always the same,” he says, standing on his deck, looking out across the bay.
“The little island is there, and the big island,” he says, pointing out a couple of heavily-treed, rocky outcroppings on the water.
“They never had a name, they’re just the big island and the little island,” he smiles.
As for what he likes to do at the cottage, he says “Sleep. And play golf.”
“Well, I don’t play golf much anymore,” he admits. “I go around in a cart and watch the others play, and tell them how to play, you know.”
I asked about a rumour circulating that King Charles would be attending his birthday party.
“Well, Charlie phoned me from London and said he couldn’t make it,” explained Chancey.
“The plane that he had ordered had broken down, but he sent a card.”
There was indeed a card with a picture and message from the monarch and his consort on the long buffet table among the array of delicious foods provided by the mother-daughter catering team of Chantal Labrie and Emillie Levesque, with the significant contributions of Melanie Rivet.