Friday the 13th was anything but unlucky for Vera Eloise Johnston, who spent the afternoon celebrating her 100th birthday in jovial company.
When asked about the best thing she learned in 100 years, the brand new centenarian furrowed her brow in thought for a minute, fishing memories from a lifetime that began the same year Woodrow Wilson became the 28th President of the United States and The Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving assembly line.
“I learned to ride my horse, Babe,” she responded. “It was really important to me, but I don’t think it was important to anyone else.”
The sole survivor of four siblings, Vera – wearing a bright red shawl and sparkly crystal tiara – sat like a queen among five generations of family members. In all, she has three children, eight grandchildren, seven great grandchildren and nine great-great grandchildren.
Born into a family of wheat farmers in rural Kansas in an era where horseback riding was the main form of transportation, being able to ride a horse gave the then 10-year-old girl the kind of rush most 16-year-olds get today upon earning their driver’s license.
In her lifetime, Vera taught in a one-room schoolhouse, paid her family’s electric bill for the electricity generated by a single light bulb, and survived the Great Depression as a newlywed with a newborn child.
Her skills as an accomplished seamstress were something that always impressed Kay Gameiro, the youngest of Vera’s three children.
“When I was a little girl, I thought she was magic,” said Gameiro, now 66, who has three living children a and a fourth who passed away.
Kay remembers her mother used to pull out the Sears catalogue and ask her to pick her favorite dress. Vera would make it overnight and by morning, the finished product would be hanging in Kay’s closet.
In 1927, a teenage Vera, and her oldest sister, Hazel Brown, moved to Concordia – “a tiny little town in the heart of America” – to go to high school, Kay said.
It was there that Vera, a “pretty little prairie chicken” as Kay puts it, was swept off her feet by city slicker John Johnston – Vera’s senior by more than a year and the son of a man who came to Concordia to work on the railroad.
“Their paths crossed and they were star-struck lovers to the end,” Kay said with a smile.
After graduating from high school in 1930, Vera moved to another part of Kansas to work as a school teacher and made about $90 a month.
“That was big money in those days,” said her oldest son, John Johnston, 81, who notes that the cowboys and farmers of the time made about $30 a month. “She made more money teaching school than a cowboy or a farmer.”
After about a year of teaching, Vera and her high school sweetheart were still crazy about each other and eloped. They formed a striking couple, as John was a tall 6 foot, 4 inches and Vera was a petite 5 feet tall – if she stretched it, said Kay.
They were married during the Great Depression.
“My mom had a plain white gold (wedding) band as long as I can remember but I noticed today she was wearing a diamond, so it was after I left home that she got a diamond,” explained her son John, who left his parent’s house 60 years ago when he got married.
Vera and her husband John were married for 81 years and were very much in love the whole time, said Kay.
John passed away in February at the ripe old age of 100-and-a-half-years-old. Vera still wears her husband’s wedding ring on a gold chain around her neck.
Today, Vera’s bright blue eyes have been passed on to many in the room including Kay, along with her granddaughter, Lisa.
In September, Vera left an assisted living home in Salinas to move in with her oldest son John, who has resided in San Martin for 43 years.
John’s daughters, Lisa 52; and Teri, 56; are now primary caregivers for their grandmother Vera in the house where they grew up. They live in a pleasant rural neighborhood across the street from horses, where people walking their dogs on a Friday afternoon still wave at perfect strangers.
On her special day, Vera had her cake and ate it, too. According to the centenarian, a slice of good German chocolate cake rates even higher than opening birthday presents.
After the family sang “Happy Birthday,” Kay leaned in to Vera’s ear and said, “Mommy do you want to open presents or do you want cake?”
“I want cake,” Vera said emphatically.
The family laughed, as Vera has an infamous sweet tooth and has been known to enjoy up to several cinnamon rolls in a single day.
On the couch, Angela Cifelli, the youngest of eight grandchildren, savored the moment and snuggled up to her grandma.
“You look fabulous grandma,” said Angela, 34, with a beaming smile as she wrapped Vera in big hug. “I want to look like you when I’m 100 – if I make it.”
