She excelled at singles and mixed doubles, frequently winning trophies for her home town. As a child, Kay began cross-country skiing with friends on the pasture land near the Burchill Lime Quarry where they also skated on Steel Pond, Maxner’s Pond and Long Pond. Later, as a smooth and accomplished skater, she loved gliding gracefully to waltzes and military marches which filled the air at the old Stannus Street Rink. “It was most exciting when the music was played by the Windsor Concert Band”, she adds. At Windsor Academy she played for the high school hockey team and later played for Windsor’s Women’s Hockey Team competing with Wolfville, Hantsport and Acadia College.
Kay began curling as a high school student and continued the sport throughout her adult life. Her ability as a curler took her to both provincial and national levels of competition. She came to serve in executive positions on both provincial and national league organizations.
Throughout her life, she was a historian, a teacher, an athlete, an editor and publisher, and a committed volunteer. All of her hard work was in an effort to make Windsor a better place and she succeeded.
She was a diligent student, and she became involved in all aspects of academic life. She participated on many of the school’s sports teams, including the ladies’ hockey team prior to her graduating from Windsor Academy in 1929. Along with hockey, she played baseball, tennis, curling, and golf. Plus, she was also an avid cross-country skier, and she loved to fish in the lakes along the Chester Road.
A woman of many accomplishments during her ninety-three years, Kay Anslow was a stellar Windsorian since childhood. Born in 1911, she became a local star in sport, music, education and journalism. As well as partaking in several activities, she regularly entertained the community with the excellence of her award-winning performances. Photos of Kay as a singer, dancer, skater, curler, tennis player, baseball and hockey player in youth and later as a business school director and newspaper editor, invariably found her sporting the finest in fashion of the day. In summer, she was right at home sliding bases, pitching and scoring runs in baseball, while also winning at singles and mixed doubles in tennis in daytime. Evenings usually found her golfing at the small 9-hole course or playing tennis on the clay courts at Fort Edward. Her family owned a summer cottage at nearby Aberdeen Beach and Kay and her friends congregated there regularly to swim at high tide in the salt water of the Avon River.
In 1931, she became the first Miss Windsor, by popular vote. She had a keen sense of community and took part in numerous fund-raising concerts. During the mid-late 1930s she was director of the Elmcroft Playgrounds for children and choir director and soloist at the Windsor Baptist Church. In the 1930s, she became secretary to Headmaster Gerald White at King’s
College School and established a School of business there which included girls, thus introducing co-education to KCS. She founded the Windsor School of Business in 1942, which was responsible for the education of countless young regional women and men who then held major positions in business locally and elsewhere .During the Second World War, she organized the Windsor Concert Party, made up entirely of talented Windsorians, that entertained members of the armed forces locally and around Nova Scotia.
A charter member of the Windsor-Curling Club, Kay competed locally, provincially and nationally. As a member of the National Curling Association, she travelled across the nation setting up new curling clubs.
Kay’s grandfather, journalist James J. Anslow moved to Windsor from New Brunswick in 1886 to take over the Hants Journal which had replaced the Windsor Mail in 1867. Kay’s father, Harold S. Anslow followed in his father’s position in 1914 and was editor until he died in 1952 at which time Kay became editor. In 1955 she bought out her competitor, the Windsor Tribune and amalgamated Windsor’s two weekly papers. In 1957, she sold the Hants Journal and felt that she had retired. She was encouraged to join the staff of the Windsor Regional High School as Head of Business Education. She retired from the position in 1972 but continued to collect historical data of people and events in the Windsor area.
Over the years, Kay was awarded many sports awards and trophies. In retirement, she was awarded the Phyllis R. Blakely Lifetime Achievement Award for collecting and recording local history. Well into her 80s, she was assisting people with their family genealogical research from her vast files.
Having donated her historical ‘treasures’ to the West Hants Historical Society, when asked if she wouldn’t miss having them around her, she commented that the stories of her beloved home town were embedded in her memory, so they would be with her forever. Having lived life to the fullest, Kay died on February 17, 2004.