Grandma Marci's 100th Birthday!

On Sunday, Grandma Marci celebrated her approaching 100th birthday with some close friends. Today, on her actual birthday, we celebrated together as a family. My Grandma does pretty well for being 100 years old. She lives alone in her apartment in Omaha with the help of a couple of staff and my Mom, she keeps up with the latest style trends especially if it means leopard prints, she has turned into quite the finicky eater eating mostly healthy things (walnuts and blueberries top her favorites chart), and she still cruises pretty well with a walker. I'm impressed. Her hearing is not very good. She can really no longer hear my voice (really, my voice is the first that people that have hearing problems can not hear. I must have a high pitched voice of something). It does make visiting with her difficult.

Imagine being 100 years old? Look at all that she has seen? The telephone was connected via an operator during her time and now she has a cell phone. The TV was invented during her time and now there are smart HDTVs. The radio, internet, computers, APPLE!!, cars look totally different (she gave her car to my Dad 2 years ago when she turned 98. She drove a Cadillac). Imagine how prices have changed? My Grandma was born right after the Titanic sank! Woodrow Wilson was President shortly after she was born. She lived through WW1, WW2 and the Great US Depression. She was alive when Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1912 bread cost 5 or 6 cents!! In the 1920's, one could buy a house for $2000-$3000. Wow! We pay that a month in our mortgage! Average salary during 1910-1919 was $750 a year. Crazy!

My Grandma was a hair dresser before she retired. I do not remember her doing hair professionally, but I do recall Grandma giving my Mom perms many times. My Grandma lived in Shelby, Iowa before moving to Omaha and living in a home in Happy Hollow. We loved going to visit her as she lived close to the playground. Grandma, to be perfectly honest, never really liked kids when we were young. As she has gotten older, she now wants us to visit.

To celebrate her big 100th birthday today, we went to Charleston's Restuarant in Omaha. It was fabulous! They treated us with a big ice cream brownie sundae for dessert to help us ring in her 100 years. It was a fabulous dessert. The food and atmosphere were awesome, too. Grandma appeared to have a nice time, even commenting to our waiter that he was a fine looking young man (Never too old to spot the hot looking men, right?!).

Her key to longevity? I'm not sure, really. I guess she drank a lot in her day, partied hard (funny for me to imagine this). So, is that it?! Now she eats really healthy and has for a number of years. She loves regular Coke, too. In her free time, she watches and trades on the stock market, although she has slowed at this in the last few years.

I hope my Grandma had a great 100th birthday. I know how lucky I am to have her in my life for so long. I can not take the time we have with her for granted.

Happy 100th Grandma! She looks amazing!