On Sunday Nov 5, the Brown family competed in a four-generation five-family-member 2000m relay at the Regina Optimist Dolphins Queen City Swim Challenge. Mary Brown, the great-grandmother, her daughters Marj Walton and Melanie Leverick, Melanie’s daughter, Erin Leverick Jennings, newly married, and her stepdaughter Chea swam a relay. Erin told her aunt, Marj Walton: “Auntie, if we can’t all get in there and swim 400 meters the day after my wedding there is something wrong!.” For Walton, that puts everything into perspective. “They want to do it as it will be a great opportunity for Chea’s grandparents and aunts and uncles on her dad’s side to see her swim,” Walton adds.

Erin Leverick Jennings (left), Marj Walton, Melanie Leverick, Mary Brown and Chea Jennings.

Regina – The scene is the Saskatchewan Masters Short Course provincial swimming championship at the University of Saskatchewan in 1999. Spectators may or may not be aware that, in the gaggle of swimmers preparing for a relay, history is about to be made.

One family of women is about to establish the first provincial record for the women’s 160-199 age group in the 4 x 50 Medley Relay. Maureen Collinson led off with backstroke. Melanie Leverick swam breaststroke, Walton swam butterfly and Mary, mother of four children, former stenographer and Regina Masters Club founder, anchored the freestyle leg. They clocked a time of 3:32.93 (it of course has been broken since, Marj Walton says.)

Marj Walton, left, Maureen Collinson, Melanie Leverick and Mary Brown in 1999.

It’s been rewarding and motivating to participate with her mother, says Marj. “And then when I say to myself that, ‘Hey, that is my mother, it sends chills up my arms and down by back and brings tears to me eyes. I cannot describe nor explain into words how this makes me feel.”

Brown, 77, and her youngest daughter, Walton, 42, competed together at the XI FINA World Masters Championship in California in August. Brown set three new Masters provincial records (teammate Penny Mymryk, women’s 55-59, set two new records) at the championship.

Mary set new records in the Women’s 75 to 79 age category in the 50 Free, 100 Free and 200 backstroke, winning four medals for her 8th, 9th and 10th place finishes. In what has been a great year, “people say the older you get the faster you’re getting,” she laughs. She was serious about her training: thinking about her strokes as she swam and training more.

Not to mention the fitness and living class she takes twice a week with her teammate and friendly rival Ada Lou Watson. They lift weights and stretch for an hour, until 5 p.m. Then at 5:30 they head to the pool for a Masters workout. “So we’re really getting our exercise,” she laughs.

It was an unbelievable experience for Walton to be at FINA Worlds with her mother.

“I wouldn’t have missed it or traded it for anything. I cannot wait for more opportunities like this to share with my mother. This is what life really is all about. “

Near Regina, a thread of water links the Fishing Lakes of the Qu'Appelle Valley: Pasqua, Echo, Mission, and Katepwa. It’s so with the women of the Brown family. Mary and her husband Douglas swam as youngsters in Mission Lake. Nothing official or formal, really, just times at the lake at their parents’ cottage. Eventually Douglas turned to lifeguarding. They had four children, including their son Michael.

As water is the staff of life so the Brown women also find charity work and volunteering to be as much a part of their lives as their swimming.

Mary Brown helped found the Regina Masters Swim Club. Marj was swimming back in the late 1970s. As the parents sat around waiting for their children, someone had “a brainwave” that they should start a club for the parents. Mary, who had been swimming for pleasure more or less learned to swim on her own.

The club formed in 1977; then in 1979, Douglas was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1980. As work kept her going – “I don’t know what I would have done [without a job] I certainly didn’t want to sit around the house” – swimming was equally important.

She also turned to her group, the United Commercial Travelers. One of their main projects is fund raising for cancer. She has spent the last 40 years canvassing for the Canadian Cancer Society. She has also bought Christmas items for patients in palliative care at the hospital.

“I feel it helps out the charity in the first place. I’m very fortunate I’ve always been a healthy person. I just feel that people who have health problems, you’re helping them. It certainly gives cheer.” Last Christmas, she helped deliver Christmas baskets, and one patient told her, “‘You have made my day.’ It gives you a good feeling when you have given someone a little cheer and happiness.”

Mary is a role model citizen for the health care system, says her daughter Marj. “She is the poster person to say that staying active all your life really does pay off and keeps you healthy, and young.” Walton – among others - can’t wait to live her mother’s lifestyle, where she can “exercise/train everyday and then travel to various competitions and turn it into a holiday.”

Walton is the Executive Director of Swim Saskatchewan. After swimming as an age grouper from 1975-80, she didn’t go anywhere near a pool for about 10 years. After she and her husband, Louis, a sergeant in the Army married, they headed to Nova Scotia where she coached the Cornwallis Chargers, then the Dartmouth Crusaders Swim Club, and the Halifax Explosions Masters Swim Club. They returned to Saskatchewan in 1998. Walton is also the former chair of the championship committee and used to serve on the rules committee. She is now part of a working group with Frank Coy’s Championship committee.

“I’m just so passionate about the sport,” she says. “I want the right things to happen for the right reasons. I tend to be a person who is quite vocal.” After the 2002 National championship in Saskatchewan, she saw some areas that could be improved and was asked if she would be interested in helping. She volunteered.

She voices her opinion and volunteers because of her varied swimming background. “I know all the bases of the sport and can speak from all sides of it. If I’m willing to open my mouth I’ll step up to the plate.”

Melanie Leverick, 52, doesn’t just sit in the stands and watch the Saskatchewan Rough Riders play. She is part of the team organizing the Plaza of Honor fund raising dinner for the Riders. Her family has always been season ticket holders, since 1977. Despite often dismal seasons, the club never lost the Levericks’ subscription. Now her daughters hold season tickets.

“It’s a way to see the caliber of athletes” in the province she believes. “I enjoy it. It’s a high class fund raising event. Now that the girls are involved I’m going to stick with it.”

Leverick has stuck with swimming, too, despite taking time off when she was a teenager. Although she had her Senior swimmer and wanted to lifeguard and be an instructor, she needed to be 16 to guard swimmers at Katepwa Lake Provincial Park near her grandparents’ cottage.

But there was no avoiding the need to be fit and in the water. Married and moving into a house, she tried the stroke improvement class at the Y pool; they were swimming the width of the pool. She tried Regina Masters and swam through both pregnancies. Even now she leaves work and heads right to the pool. She always needs to do something. She also walks her dog very day and tries to walk during her breaks at work. She has spent 34 years with the Saskatchewan Government and currently works in the Population Health Branch of the Department of Health.

For Leverick, swimming is less about the competition and more about social and health matters. “It’s a way I keep in touch with my mom and sister at least I see them once, even twice a week. Mom is such an encouragement. She’s probably been doing better than me,” she laughs. “Twice a week isn’t enough” if you want to compete.

While racing at the 2005 World Masters Games in Edmonton, Leverick was amazed. “These 80 and 90 year olds [were] swimming. It’s just so encouraging. It makes you realize you can keep yourself healthy and active.”

She also swims to honour her father. Douglas was a volunteer coach with the Regina Optimist Dolphins. After he retired from the Liquor Control Board, he hoped to become a paid coach but the cancer decided otherwise.

While the sisters are thrilled they swim with their mother. Mary is pleased she can keep up with them. They talk of enticing their sister Maureen back to Masters. They also hope Erin Jennings, Melanie’s oldest, will swim Masters. Leverick’s new step granddaughter is a swimmer and the family is actively looking for a swim meet where they can swim a multi-generational family relay.

After all, it’s just tradition. The family used to spend most of the spring and summer weekends at the lake. “The water has been there. It was part of our lives.”

Marj Walton, left, Mary Brown and Melanie Leverick of Regina.