“I’m doing OK for my age,” said Ruth Anderson, who turns 110 Friday. Surrounded by family pictures in a Marshall, Minnesota, care center, where she lives, she reflected on the changes she has seen.
Photo: Richard Sennott, Star Tribune
Ruth Anderson faces her birthday with an open mind and a mean game of Scrabble. She may be the last Minnesotan alive who was born before 1900.
By Warren Wolfe, Star Tribune
MARSHALL, Minnesota - Ruth Anderson looked up from the photos of her life to think about the question.
"First, you keep yourself active," she said. "You do things. You think about things. And then, don't waste time fussing about things you can't change. And then just be lucky. I guess that's how you get to be old like me."
Today, Anderson turns age 110 -- believed to be the oldest living Minnesotan and likely the last remaining Minnesotan born in the 1800s.
White-haired, with eyeglasses, a hearing aid and a firm grasp on her memories, she joins a list of 76 people in the world who are 110 or older -- "supercentenarians" -- kept by the Gerontology Research Group, based in Los Angeles.
A resident of the Avera Marshall Morningside Heights Care Center nursing home, she is the only Minnesotan now on the list (www.grg.org).
There have been several others. Catherine Hagel, of New Hope, was the world's third-oldest person when she died in December at 114.
The world's oldest man on record is Walter Breuning, of Great Falls, Mont., who turns 113 on Sept. 21. He was born in Melrose, Minn., in 1896 and moved to Montana at age 21 to work on the railroad.
Like many very old people, if Anderson told you she was 80, you'd believe her.
"I don't know what 110 is supposed to look like, but that isn't it," said friend and Scrabble partner Muriel Cadwell, 81, of Marshall. "You're supposed to have wrinkles at that age."
Anderson is modest: "Well I try to keep myself up," she said, a slight smile reflecting the one in photos taken more than 90 years ago of a beautiful young woman.
She reads newspapers, her Bible and books with religious or inspirational themes, plays Bingo and joins in other activities at the home.
"Some people won't play bean-bag toss with her because she always wins," said her daughter-in-law, Beverly Anderson.
At their weekly Scrabble game Thursday, Ruth Anderson beat Cadwell 220 to 210. They began playing three years ago, after Cadwell's church served coffee at the home and they recognized each other as Scrabble lovers. Anderson also plays twice a week with relatives.
"It's about words -- I've always loved words and reading -- and it's about strategy," Anderson said. "You have to keep going for the double- and triple-word scores."
"It's a good game," she said. "It teases your mind."
New and old roles for women
Over the decades, Anderson has seen huge changes in how life is lived -- six major wars, the Great Depression, travel by auto and airplane and communication by radio, television, telephone and Internet.
"The radio, that was something," she said. "You could actually hear what was going on in the world."
Anderson was born Ruth Peterson in 1899 near Balaton, 20 miles south of Marshall, on a farm homesteaded by her Swedish immigrant maternal grandparents 25 years earlier.
She learned English when she traipsed a mile across farm fields to the rural schoolhouse serving grades 1 through 7.
She lived with a family in Balaton, 10 miles away, while she attended 8th grade.
With no high school available, Anderson returned to the farm until she was 18, then spent a year at the Mankato Commercial College. Her shorthand, typing and bookkeeping courses led to office jobs in Minneapolis for about six years.
"That was kind of a change around then, for girls to leave the farm and get a job in the Cities," Anderson recalled. "I had other friends up there. Some of the men were in the war then, and there were more jobs."
But it also wasn't unusual for young women to leave paid work and return home to care for the family, as Anderson did when her father became ill.
She stayed at home, tending both parents and two brothers as they aged and died.
Later, she took in an orphaned niece, Helen Youngquist, who in 1958 became Miss South Dakota and a semifinalist for Miss America.
Instant family
Then, at age 60, she married.
Another sister had died, leaving four sons and a husband, George, age 47. She married him a year later and moved to a farm in Pipestone County.
"It was instant family, not always easy with those four boys, including my husband," her daughter-in-law said. "But Ruth made it all work."
When Anderson was 98, George's dementia became too much for her to handle, and he moved to the nursing home in Balaton. She moved in, too, but that lasted only a month because, her as daughter-in-law said, "Ruth was bored silly."
About that time she stopped driving and became the first resident at a new assisted living facility in Marshall. She lived in one room and continued a lifetime of quilting in the other.
In 2004, at age 105, she moved to the nursing home. With no room for quilting, Anderson took up painting in oils and acrylics, with an instructor hired to help her learn how to mix paints.
"Oh, I can't do that stuff anymore. It takes more than I've got. I'll stick with my book and Scrabble -- and a little singing," she said, breaking into a Swedish song from her youth.
'I guess I won't go yet'
Anderson is not terribly impressed by her age, or by the hoopla that others are making of it -- there's a party today with a release of 110 helium balloons at the nursing home.
"I guess it's important, at least to some folks," she said after thumbing through an article about her in the newspaper from nearby Springfield, Minn.
Except for two major operations, a mastectomy and hysterectomy, Anderson has been strong and healthy most of her life. With good blood pressure and cholesterol levels, she takes almost no medication.
"I'm doing OK for my age," she said, flashing that slight smile. "Life is pretty good. I guess I won't go yet." [rc]
Warren Wolfe
© 2009 Star Tribune.
July 24, 2009
USA: A Minnesota marvel - a supercentenarian - is 110
.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST.PAUL, Minnesota / Star-Trbune / Lifestyle / Family / Relationships / July 24, 2009
“I’m doing OK for my age,” said Ruth Anderson, who turns 110 Friday. Surrounded by family pictures in a Marshall, Minnesota, care center, where she lives, she reflected on the changes she has seen.
Photo: Richard Sennott, Star Tribune
Ruth Anderson faces her birthday with an open mind and a mean game of Scrabble. She may be the last Minnesotan alive who was born before 1900.
By Warren Wolfe, Star Tribune
MARSHALL, Minnesota - Ruth Anderson looked up from the photos of her life to think about the question.
"First, you keep yourself active," she said. "You do things. You think about things. And then, don't waste time fussing about things you can't change. And then just be lucky. I guess that's how you get to be old like me."
Today, Anderson turns age 110 -- believed to be the oldest living Minnesotan and likely the last remaining Minnesotan born in the 1800s.
White-haired, with eyeglasses, a hearing aid and a firm grasp on her memories, she joins a list of 76 people in the world who are 110 or older -- "supercentenarians" -- kept by the Gerontology Research Group, based in Los Angeles.
A resident of the Avera Marshall Morningside Heights Care Center nursing home, she is the only Minnesotan now on the list (www.grg.org).
There have been several others. Catherine Hagel, of New Hope, was the world's third-oldest person when she died in December at 114.
The world's oldest man on record is Walter Breuning, of Great Falls, Mont., who turns 113 on Sept. 21. He was born in Melrose, Minn., in 1896 and moved to Montana at age 21 to work on the railroad.
Like many very old people, if Anderson told you she was 80, you'd believe her.
"I don't know what 110 is supposed to look like, but that isn't it," said friend and Scrabble partner Muriel Cadwell, 81, of Marshall. "You're supposed to have wrinkles at that age."
Anderson is modest: "Well I try to keep myself up," she said, a slight smile reflecting the one in photos taken more than 90 years ago of a beautiful young woman.
She reads newspapers, her Bible and books with religious or inspirational themes, plays Bingo and joins in other activities at the home.
"Some people won't play bean-bag toss with her because she always wins," said her daughter-in-law, Beverly Anderson.
At their weekly Scrabble game Thursday, Ruth Anderson beat Cadwell 220 to 210. They began playing three years ago, after Cadwell's church served coffee at the home and they recognized each other as Scrabble lovers. Anderson also plays twice a week with relatives.
"It's about words -- I've always loved words and reading -- and it's about strategy," Anderson said. "You have to keep going for the double- and triple-word scores."
"It's a good game," she said. "It teases your mind."
New and old roles for women
Over the decades, Anderson has seen huge changes in how life is lived -- six major wars, the Great Depression, travel by auto and airplane and communication by radio, television, telephone and Internet.
"The radio, that was something," she said. "You could actually hear what was going on in the world."
Anderson was born Ruth Peterson in 1899 near Balaton, 20 miles south of Marshall, on a farm homesteaded by her Swedish immigrant maternal grandparents 25 years earlier.
She learned English when she traipsed a mile across farm fields to the rural schoolhouse serving grades 1 through 7.
She lived with a family in Balaton, 10 miles away, while she attended 8th grade.
With no high school available, Anderson returned to the farm until she was 18, then spent a year at the Mankato Commercial College. Her shorthand, typing and bookkeeping courses led to office jobs in Minneapolis for about six years.
"That was kind of a change around then, for girls to leave the farm and get a job in the Cities," Anderson recalled. "I had other friends up there. Some of the men were in the war then, and there were more jobs."
But it also wasn't unusual for young women to leave paid work and return home to care for the family, as Anderson did when her father became ill.
She stayed at home, tending both parents and two brothers as they aged and died.
Later, she took in an orphaned niece, Helen Youngquist, who in 1958 became Miss South Dakota and a semifinalist for Miss America.
Instant family
Then, at age 60, she married.
Another sister had died, leaving four sons and a husband, George, age 47. She married him a year later and moved to a farm in Pipestone County.
"It was instant family, not always easy with those four boys, including my husband," her daughter-in-law said. "But Ruth made it all work."
When Anderson was 98, George's dementia became too much for her to handle, and he moved to the nursing home in Balaton. She moved in, too, but that lasted only a month because, her as daughter-in-law said, "Ruth was bored silly."
About that time she stopped driving and became the first resident at a new assisted living facility in Marshall. She lived in one room and continued a lifetime of quilting in the other.
In 2004, at age 105, she moved to the nursing home. With no room for quilting, Anderson took up painting in oils and acrylics, with an instructor hired to help her learn how to mix paints.
"Oh, I can't do that stuff anymore. It takes more than I've got. I'll stick with my book and Scrabble -- and a little singing," she said, breaking into a Swedish song from her youth.
'I guess I won't go yet'
Anderson is not terribly impressed by her age, or by the hoopla that others are making of it -- there's a party today with a release of 110 helium balloons at the nursing home.
"I guess it's important, at least to some folks," she said after thumbing through an article about her in the newspaper from nearby Springfield, Minn.
Except for two major operations, a mastectomy and hysterectomy, Anderson has been strong and healthy most of her life. With good blood pressure and cholesterol levels, she takes almost no medication.
"I'm doing OK for my age," she said, flashing that slight smile. "Life is pretty good. I guess I won't go yet." [rc]
Warren Wolfe
© 2009 Star Tribune.
“I’m doing OK for my age,” said Ruth Anderson, who turns 110 Friday. Surrounded by family pictures in a Marshall, Minnesota, care center, where she lives, she reflected on the changes she has seen.
Photo: Richard Sennott, Star Tribune
Ruth Anderson faces her birthday with an open mind and a mean game of Scrabble. She may be the last Minnesotan alive who was born before 1900.
By Warren Wolfe, Star Tribune
MARSHALL, Minnesota - Ruth Anderson looked up from the photos of her life to think about the question.
"First, you keep yourself active," she said. "You do things. You think about things. And then, don't waste time fussing about things you can't change. And then just be lucky. I guess that's how you get to be old like me."
Today, Anderson turns age 110 -- believed to be the oldest living Minnesotan and likely the last remaining Minnesotan born in the 1800s.
White-haired, with eyeglasses, a hearing aid and a firm grasp on her memories, she joins a list of 76 people in the world who are 110 or older -- "supercentenarians" -- kept by the Gerontology Research Group, based in Los Angeles.
A resident of the Avera Marshall Morningside Heights Care Center nursing home, she is the only Minnesotan now on the list (www.grg.org).
There have been several others. Catherine Hagel, of New Hope, was the world's third-oldest person when she died in December at 114.
The world's oldest man on record is Walter Breuning, of Great Falls, Mont., who turns 113 on Sept. 21. He was born in Melrose, Minn., in 1896 and moved to Montana at age 21 to work on the railroad.
Like many very old people, if Anderson told you she was 80, you'd believe her.
"I don't know what 110 is supposed to look like, but that isn't it," said friend and Scrabble partner Muriel Cadwell, 81, of Marshall. "You're supposed to have wrinkles at that age."
Anderson is modest: "Well I try to keep myself up," she said, a slight smile reflecting the one in photos taken more than 90 years ago of a beautiful young woman.
She reads newspapers, her Bible and books with religious or inspirational themes, plays Bingo and joins in other activities at the home.
"Some people won't play bean-bag toss with her because she always wins," said her daughter-in-law, Beverly Anderson.
At their weekly Scrabble game Thursday, Ruth Anderson beat Cadwell 220 to 210. They began playing three years ago, after Cadwell's church served coffee at the home and they recognized each other as Scrabble lovers. Anderson also plays twice a week with relatives.
"It's about words -- I've always loved words and reading -- and it's about strategy," Anderson said. "You have to keep going for the double- and triple-word scores."
"It's a good game," she said. "It teases your mind."
New and old roles for women
Over the decades, Anderson has seen huge changes in how life is lived -- six major wars, the Great Depression, travel by auto and airplane and communication by radio, television, telephone and Internet.
"The radio, that was something," she said. "You could actually hear what was going on in the world."
Anderson was born Ruth Peterson in 1899 near Balaton, 20 miles south of Marshall, on a farm homesteaded by her Swedish immigrant maternal grandparents 25 years earlier.
She learned English when she traipsed a mile across farm fields to the rural schoolhouse serving grades 1 through 7.
She lived with a family in Balaton, 10 miles away, while she attended 8th grade.
With no high school available, Anderson returned to the farm until she was 18, then spent a year at the Mankato Commercial College. Her shorthand, typing and bookkeeping courses led to office jobs in Minneapolis for about six years.
"That was kind of a change around then, for girls to leave the farm and get a job in the Cities," Anderson recalled. "I had other friends up there. Some of the men were in the war then, and there were more jobs."
But it also wasn't unusual for young women to leave paid work and return home to care for the family, as Anderson did when her father became ill.
She stayed at home, tending both parents and two brothers as they aged and died.
Later, she took in an orphaned niece, Helen Youngquist, who in 1958 became Miss South Dakota and a semifinalist for Miss America.
Instant family
Then, at age 60, she married.
Another sister had died, leaving four sons and a husband, George, age 47. She married him a year later and moved to a farm in Pipestone County.
"It was instant family, not always easy with those four boys, including my husband," her daughter-in-law said. "But Ruth made it all work."
When Anderson was 98, George's dementia became too much for her to handle, and he moved to the nursing home in Balaton. She moved in, too, but that lasted only a month because, her as daughter-in-law said, "Ruth was bored silly."
About that time she stopped driving and became the first resident at a new assisted living facility in Marshall. She lived in one room and continued a lifetime of quilting in the other.
In 2004, at age 105, she moved to the nursing home. With no room for quilting, Anderson took up painting in oils and acrylics, with an instructor hired to help her learn how to mix paints.
"Oh, I can't do that stuff anymore. It takes more than I've got. I'll stick with my book and Scrabble -- and a little singing," she said, breaking into a Swedish song from her youth.
'I guess I won't go yet'
Anderson is not terribly impressed by her age, or by the hoopla that others are making of it -- there's a party today with a release of 110 helium balloons at the nursing home.
"I guess it's important, at least to some folks," she said after thumbing through an article about her in the newspaper from nearby Springfield, Minn.
Except for two major operations, a mastectomy and hysterectomy, Anderson has been strong and healthy most of her life. With good blood pressure and cholesterol levels, she takes almost no medication.
"I'm doing OK for my age," she said, flashing that slight smile. "Life is pretty good. I guess I won't go yet." [rc]
Warren Wolfe
© 2009 Star Tribune.
