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Eric Bunnell's People: Pinafore Park reunion could be Canada's oldest annual picnic

The Baker family has gathered yearly on the third Saturday of June since thie family first reunion in 1898

If they were awarded, Margaret Baker Holdsworth would get at least a gold star for attendance – if not almost 100 for the 100-year-old centenarian who has missed only one Baker Family Picnic in her long lifetime.

The get-together for descendants of a pioneering Yarmouth Township family has been held yearly since the first in 1898. Even during two years of the pandemic, when Baker offspring including Margaret – the great-great-granddaughter of William and Margaret Baker, who came to present-day Canada in 1847 – gathered by Zoom.

Eric Bunnell's People: Pinafore Park reunion could be Canada's oldest annual picnic Back to video

Said to be Canada’s oldest annual picnic, the 2026 edition of the reunion was held Saturday in Pinafore Park, as always on the third Saturday of June.

This year’s picnic registered 94 family members, including Lynn Hart of Ottawa, who travelled the farthest. Margaret was the oldest attendee, but there were three other people who’d already celebreated their 90th birthdays. The youngest was 10 months. And at 63 years, Ed and Betty Baker were the longest married couple.

Born Jan. 31, 1926, in Littlewood in Middlesex Centre on Westdel Bourne west of Colonel Talbot Road and Highway 401 on a family farm now occupied by a nephew, Margaret was just five months old when she attended her first picnic. Her father, Ainsley Baker, had attended the first picnic and continued to join every year throughout his 92 years.

“He expected the same devotion from his family,” Margaret messages through her daughter, Marilyn McFadden, who was this year’s picnic secretary.

“Going to the reunion was a must. I’m sure he would be very proud that four of his grandchildren have been on the executive, planning future reunions, for many years now.”

Her first memories of the picnic are of donning Sunday best for the day.

“One of her fondest moments is when she and her cousin Connie got dressed up in period costume when the picnic was at the homestead and they pushed the original baby buggy around,” Marilyn says.

Margaret, a retired elementary teacher who was president of the 100th picnic, had a good excuse for the one reunion she missed — as a young girl, she was attending a Christian youth retreat.

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