Mountain View Voice internship
- Anna Laman
- Jun 24, 2016
- 4 min read
100 years of a great life (my first front page article)
Mary Peterson may have just celebrated her 100th birthday, but her social life, positive attitude, determination and humor reveal her as a woman inspirationally young at heart.
Born on Jan. 9, 1916, the 71 year Mountain View resident and her friends celebrated the centennial event with a party at the Sunny- vale International Church.
Peterson spoke to the Voice last week in the Mountain View home she and her husband, Thomas Peterson, built decades ago. She remained in the house after her husband’s passing in 1978, and insists on remaining there now, with the help of caretakers who come in during the day to help her with the household chores.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Peterson is a role model to many seniors in the Mid- Peninsula Widows and Wid- owers Association, the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (now called Menlo Church), and the Mountain View Senior Center.
Up until about 10 years ago, she was on the bowling team Holy Rollers, which she named.
Since she has no close fam- ily members in California, she formed a family in the people she has encountered every day by engaging in such activities as baking cookies and teaching others to crochet.
Among her new family is Edith Frost, a retired teacher whom she met through the Widows and Widowers Associ- ation. “Her biggest fault is that she has to give something to everyone she meets — she can’t leave anybody without making them smile,” Frost said.
“Her favorite thing to do is make cookies for those who help her. She would drive to visit the sick and on their birthdays give them cards and sing happy birthday.”
Frost isn’t the only special person in Peterson’s life. She has a long-distance romance with Frank LeBlanc, who is currently living in an assisted living facility in Redwood City after suffering a heart attack. It’s difficult for them to see each other now that she’s given up driving, but the two still make it work and call each other two or three times a day.
Peterson said that the last time they saw each other, he told her: “Honey, we’ll have to work out something — I put six kids through college so they better take me down to see you.”
The limitations of her age finally caught up with her last September, when a late-night fall landed her at Stanford Hospital for surgery and caused her to lose some of her freedoms. Chief among them was the loss of her car, an emblem of freedom for her ever since she learned to drive as a teenager, behind the wheel of a Ford Model T.
“I miss driving,” Peterson said. “I drove around all the time. I would give anything if I could just get in my car and just go around. When I got in the car to run it, like my boyfriend said I should — good Lord, I was ready to get in and drive. I was itching to drive.”Frost added, “I’m glad the car is sold now because that’s what I worried about every day — that she was going to get out and drive the car.”
Despite the fall she took, Peter- son refuses to move into an assisted living home. “Here I’m my own boss; I don’t have anybody saying I’ve got to do this or that,” she said. “I can go out, go to the bank, go walking. Of course, after I fell I can’t do it as often as I did. I was gone all the time, just out having a ball, calling up the girls asking them to go to lunch. Having a lot of fun living.”
Although she laments the increase in traffic and endless housing developments in Moun- tain View, she’s come to appreciate the positive changes that have occurred over the years, the booming downtown restaurant scene among them. Another favorite Mountain View locale is Shoreline Park, where Widows and Widowers members walk six miles every Saturday to keep active before heading to lunch at Michael’s cafe.
Peterson has seen the best and worst of America during her time, but she still possesses a positive attitude towards life and death. Growing up with a preacher for a father and a mother who taught Sunday school, faith has always been important to her. She continually expresses her thanks to God and her family for giving her guidance in times of need.When asked why she thinks she’s been so healthy for so long, she credited her adher- ence to long-ago direction from her father: “My dad called me as a child and asked one single favor of me. He said, ‘Don’t ever smoke or drink,’ and I told him that wouldn’t be a problem.”
No one could persuade her to have a sip of alcohol, even at her 100th birthday celebration. At the party, she found a quiet moment for herself among the guests to give thanks to her father for inspiring her.
When describing this moment, she welled up and admitted she wanted to hug him because he was so important to her. The second oldest of six children, Peterson can now reflect back on her life fondly. She says she may never have acquired fame or excessive wealth, but she filled her life with good people and can be satisfied knowing that she’s done her part in the world. As for the rest—well, she says, that’s up to the younger generations.“
Enjoy life, be good to people. Always help others. If some- body needs help I’ll drop what I’m doing and go. Other people come first,” she said. “It’s been a great life that way.”
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450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306 Main: (650) 964-6300
I am currently working as a journalism intern at The Mountain View Voice newspaper, alongside Andrea Gemmet, Mark Noack, Kevin Forestieri and Michelle Lee.
The Mountain View Voice newspaper is a weekly newspaper serving the San Francisco Peninsula city of Mountain View, California. Owned by Palo Alto-based Embarcadero Media, the Mountain View Voice began publishing in 1993. Embarcadero also owns and operates numerous other websites and publishes the the Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac (serving Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Woodside and Atherton) and the Pleasanton Weekly. The Palo Alto Weekly became the first newspaper in the United States to publish on the World Wide Web in January, 1994.
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