Elsie Christenson turned 100 Tuesday and her celebration with family and friends will take place on Sunday.
Christenson, a resident at Gateway Lodge, is as spry as one would hope to be at her age, and only uses a walker because her eyesight has diminished with age.
Just the other day, she felt so good she told one of the care workers that she'd like to jump up and dance to entertain the rest of the residents.
She was born in Rapid City, Manitoba, and moved to Torch River, Saskatchewan, when she was 12 years old.
"We lived on a homestead and growing up there was just like growing up anywhere else," she said, who thought their farm was pretty much like any other farm that sustained a family of six.
She used to baby sit the neighbourhood children and then met Alfred.
Christenson and her husband Alfred moved to Prince George in 1947 as he was in the logging industry and wanted to take advantage of the boom. He had three trucks under the company name A.T. Christenson Trucking.
She took on the position of logging camp cook and then settled into a job taking catalogue orders at Eaton's for 17 years.
Christenson enjoyed crocheting, needlepoint and quilting over the years and only recently had to retire those pastimes due to her poor eyesight. The couple were always the first ones out on the dance floor every Saturday night in her younger years.
They had two children, Anton and Joyce, who have since passed away. There are four grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and six great great grandchildren in the family.
They were happily married for 57 years when Alfred passed away in 1992.
Christenson is the only surviving member of her immediate family but had one of her sisters, Edie, living at Gateway with her for three years before Edie died at 90 years old this summer.
Now Christenson enjoys the activities and musical entertainment Gateway provides the residents and is always the first one to join in with familiar songs and if she's not singing outright, she's humming right along.
About 80 family members and friends will gather to celebrate her birthday at the Elder Citizens Recreation Centre Sunday.
"I've had a very happy life," she said.
