Today, Dorothy Mann turns 104. The 1928 J. M. Weatherwax (Aberdeen) High School graduate attributes her longevity to being an extrovert with a positive attitude, an active lifestyle and eating her vegetables.
“I love to have people come in (to visit) … I am very much not an introvert.” And her family agrees.
She is looking forward to seeing her friends and family today and is preparing for more than 100 guests. “People keep calling to say, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ I am very much looking forward to my birthday party.”
The celebration will be held today at the Pacific Care Rehabilitation Center in Hoquiam at 2 p.m.
Mann often volunteers at the nursing home and plays the piano each Monday for the residents, yesterday being no exception. Being involved, says Mann and her friends, is how she stays active. Mann plays by memory because she has macular degeneration in her eyes, one of the only physical symptoms she notices of growing older.
Since turning 100, Mann says the highlight was traveling to Cheney for her niece’s graduation. She also notes the death of her nephew and closing down her widow’s birthday club last month as signs of aging and life continuing on. She also gave up her driver’s license when she turned 100. She had a perfect record. Not one infraction, she said.
Though she has no children of her own, friends and family shuttle her whenever she needs to go somewhere. Last Saturday, her niece, Beth Daneker will take her shopping for her party. Mann seems to have no concerns that it is below freezing outside. What she is most concerned about is making sure she is prepared.
Through the house she ambles about with a cane in each hand. She still navigates the stairs outside of her home, a house she has lived in for the past 50 years. She explains how important this is, “Dr. Bauscher said, ‘I think your garden is what kept you so good.’ And going up and down the stairs. They tell you stairs are good for you.” She gets around just fine, however, she said, she does write a note reminding herself of what she needs on the second floor of her house. “When you need something it is always upstairs, then you get upstairs and, ‘what was that I needed?’ and she laughs while sitting on the couch, a blue baseball cap tipped to block the sun streaming through the window.
Mann says eating good food, or rather, eating the right foods is what keeps her healthy. She eats sweets, but not a lot. The right foods are vegetables, she says, and most of those vegetables, up until two years ago, came from her garden.
Gardening is the thing she misses the most.
Mann tended a garden until she was 102. “And I sure do miss it, believe me.” Mann (Born Dorothy Daneker) first planted a garden with her dad at age 5. She remembers pulling weeds out of the rutabegas and cow horn turnips.
“You can go out and pick the fresh vegetables and cook ‘em right now. They didn’t lay around. You go out and get your corn and shuck it and boil it in a pot.”
Her favorites? There are many. “String beans and corn are my two favorite vegetables but I like carrots, beets, all of that stuff and zucchini, I’m especially fond of zucchini. There are all kinds of ways to cook zucchini. I like to just bake it in the oven, cook it in the microwave, eat it raw, I just love zucchini and I always had real nice zucchini.”
Mann recommends having raised beds in the garden. The best way to keep weeds at bay, she says, is simple, “We just got down on our hands and knees and pulled those pesky weeds!”
For slugs, use slug bait, never mind with beer, she says. And she would also compost all the leaves. Even the city used to deliver leaves to her for composting.
In addition to vegetables, she also loves to eat deer heart cooked by her niece who lives in Cheney. She explains that it takes a long time, boiling, cooking and stuffing. Mann doesn’t cook much anymore because she is afraid of getting burned and friends bring her food often. One such friend who brings her food is the daughter of her bridesmaid from her 1928 September wedding to Raymond Mann.
After graduating from high school that same year in June, she enrolled in a nine month business school. Dorothy became the office manager at Truck and Tractor directly after her graduation. She remained at Truck and Tractor for 25 years. Despite working at an auto dealership she didn’t get her driver’s license until she was about 30 years old, she said. She walked everywhere. She remembers walking across the pontoon bridge — that would rise and lower with the tide — at three o’clock in the morning to meet her dad to go clam digging.
When Truck and Tractor sold out, she decided to go into business for herself and opened Mann’s Floral. She remembers one weekend preparing for nine weddings. Mann’s Floral provided flowers for many weddings in the area. “People will still come up to me and tell me that I did the flowers for their wedding and that is always a big thrill to find out they are still married.”
Mann, has a lot of “big thrills” and “highlights” of her life, a perception of positiveness that Daneker believes keeps her going. That, as well as playing piano at the nursing home and bird club and always volunteering for all sorts of things, helps keep her young. “Everything is wonderful and different and new and exciting (for her),” says Daneker.
Today, no doubt, her latest “thrill of her life” will be to see all her friends.
“I have lots of friends. I look forward to my birthday party on Tuesday.”
Richelle Barger is the lifestyles reporter for The Daily World. You may reach her at 360-537-3928, email at rbarger@thedailyworld.com, on Facebook under richellebarger.35 or Twitter @DW_Richelle
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