Ontario woman doesn't let anything get in the way of her weekly lottery purchase

By Kate Northrop

VANKLEEK HILL, Canada — An 83-year-old woman was not about to lose out on an opportunity to participate in the Lotto Max draw on Nov. 1 for $60 million (US$44.8 million) — which she ended up winning.

Vera Page, of Vankleek Hill, would not have bought her usual lottery tickets had she abided by the retirement home's rescheduled trip to the grocery store and subsequently would not have won the $60 million Lotto Max jackpot drawn on Nov. 1.

Thankfully, she was not about to let a multi-million-dollar opportunity slip by, so she found her own means of transportation.

"When the staff at my retirement home rescheduled our weekly trip, I got on my motorized scooter and went to the store myself," Page explained. "As I was checking out, I remembered to buy my Lotto Max and Lotto 6/49 tickets, both with Encore. When I got home, I tucked the tickets under my computer until the draw."

After the drawing took place, there was word that a jackpot-winning ticket had been sold in the Prescott and Russell area. As much as she didn't believe the win herself, her family and friends were near-impossible to convince.

The winning numbers for the Lotto Max draw on Tues., Nov. 1 were 2, 23, 27, 34, 43, 46, and 49, with Bonus 44. The odds of matching the seven regular numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 33,294,800.

"It was close to 9:00 pm when I called my son, Trevor, but he didn't answer his phone," the winner recalled. "Then I called my daughter-in-law, and she didn't answer either. I finally got a hold of my other daughter-in-law, but she didn't believe me and told me to go to sleep."

The first person to respond to her calls was Trevor, who rushed to her apartment to help her validate the ticket at the retailer she bought it from, the Foodland grocery store on Highway 34 in Vankleek Hill.

"I told him that we have to go to Foodland where I bought the ticket to validate it and make sure I wasn't seeing things," Page said. "We were in such a rush that I put on a pair of pants over my nightgown, threw on a jacket and went to the store half-dressed."

Sure enough, the "bells and whistles" that sounded after the clerk scanned the ticket had confirmed that she was in possession of a rather valuable lottery ticket.

Page, who raised her family while working as a personal support worker, said she would like to share some of the money with her loved ones. When her younger sister was in need of a kidney donor in 1983, Page discovered that she was a match and immediately donated a kidney to save her life.

She'd also like to splurge on an Alaskan cruise, a vacation in a warmer place, and "a big boat that many people can sleep on and tour the Ottawa River."

Lotto Max drawings take place every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 pm EST.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Vera Page of Vankleek Hill was not about to lose out on an opportunity to participate in the Lotto Max draw on Nov. 1 for $60 million (US$44.8 million) — which she ended up winning.