“I didn’t write it because I thought I was special,” says 101-year-old Lou Allie Heath of her two-volume memoir. “I had just an ordinary country girl’s life.” Lou Allie was born into a farm family on Nov. 6, 1910, in Erath County, Texas. She taught home economics for 26 years and raised two children in
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“Overalls! Oh my Lord,” says Erma  Giussi. “You had to wash every day or you’d never keep up.” From her cozy Sonora living room, Erminia Paradisa Girardi Giussi is looking back to 1926 where she can still see herself washing the family clothes on the back porch of her childhood home behind the old Tuolumne
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‘We cut weeds, worked on the roads or cleaned out the rivers. Each of us would get just a little work, a few days at a time, and then someone else would get the work. Can’t even remember how much they paid us. Just some kind of money.’

– Holly Rice on work during the Depression years

“I was a happy-go-lucky girl.” Mickey Nichols is relaxing into the story of her 98 years. Orioles are visiting the feeder outside her living room, and she’s comfortable in an easy chair. Her memory is excellent, so there’s a lot to tell. It’s a surprise that the stories she chooses are not always happy and
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“Mother didn’t fool around when it came to having her children,” says Emmalou Olson, recounting the story of her dramatic and premature arrival in 1910. She was expected to appear in April, but instead chose the pre-dawn hours of February 1 – in the middle of a family vacation. Hailing from the cold of Colorado,
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“Find something you love to do and just keep on doing it.” That’s the secret to her happiness, says retired schoolteacher Lurline Bird, who turns 100 years old in October and has been happy for every one of them. “It’s the work you do to help others that’s important,” she says. “When I retired, I
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‘If you’re doing things that are good for your body, you’re doing good for your soul.’ – Tommy Manson