HELENA, Mont. – Looking for the secret to making it to the ultimate milestone birthday of 100 years old?
“Don't even think about retirement," recommended longtime Montanan Virginia Toews. “Retirement kills people."
Toews tried retirement, sure, at the age of 71, but she was back to work within a year. Now, at 100, the Billings woman still works full-time because she doesn't like to stand still for even a minute.
Staying active and a strong work ethic are part of the secret to longevity, according to four Montana centenarians. Good genes also help, along with a deep sense of faith and strong bonds with family and friends.
This year, Montana celebrated 20 of its 1 million-plus residents who have reached the rarified centenarians club — including one Montanan celebrating his 109th birthday.
In addition to Toews, Helen Janssen, Elizabeth “Betty" Stimac, and Richard Blossom made the trek to Helena last week for a luncheon in their honor, where they were honored by Gov. Greg Gianforte.
The centenarians were awarded plaques, toasted with speeches, and received a bit of the paparazzi treatment. It was a celebration fitting for a group that has contributed so much to the state, Giangorte said.
"They've not only witnessed history, but more importantly, they've actually shaped that history through their hard work, their love of family, and community,” Gianforte told the audience. "Truly, what an accomplishment.”
Daily One-Mile Walks
These centenarians have witnessed enormous changes in Montana during their lifetime — as well as the world. But they've stayed grounded thanks to their deep connections to the land.
Born to homesteading parents on a farm near Glendive, Janssen said the only mode of transportation for her large family — she was the youngest of seven — was by horseback.
The simpleness of life then may be inconceivable to younger generations today.
"We've been blessed and fortunate to live so well,” Janssen said.
And she credits her longevity to good genes, along with some medicine, alcohol, and healthy living. Well into her 80s and rain or shine, Janssen took daily, one-mile walks from her mountain home to the mailbox.
In a land that has changed so much during her lifetime, Janssen has a simple way of recognizing where she is. "I look for the cows."
‘Dinners With Family’
Stimac was also looking for cows not so long ago, all things considered: In her 70s, she participated in a cattle drive and she wasn't just along for the ride —- she also pitched in with raking and stacking hay.
Like Janssen, Stimac fondly recalls her youth without a phone or car while growing up on a farm south of Great Falls.
The youngest of the group by just a smidge — Stimac turns 100 in October — she attended a one-room schoolhouse, then lived with host families in Great Falls while attending high school.
After becoming a beautician, Stimac took a different route: She became a telegraph phone operator for the Great Northern Railroad, where she handed orders on a pole to trained engineers as their trains sped past stations.
That role with the railroad also fueled a lifelong love of travel as she was able to visit different stations across the state.
Trips to three World's Fairs — Seattle in 1962, Spokane in 1974, and Vancouver in 1986 — are among Stimac’s favorite memories.
As memorable, too, are some of the simpler pleasures of life. “Dinners with the family,” she said.
But perhaps the downside of longevity is that such moments cannot last. “People are always leaving."
Hire Movers
Blossom, another lifelong Montanan, ventures outside the state’s border for the first time shortly after graduating as one of only six students at his high school in Great Falls. And how could he forget: It was in 1943, when he joined the Army.
And then came another series of firsts, including at Fort Benning, Georgia where Blossom, now 101, first jumped from an airplane. He was sent overseas to France, where he served the country as a paratrooper, sniper, and demolition expert.
But Montana beckoned after the war, and he enjoyed summers floating the Dearborn River, and developed quite a knack for moving — counting 42 different places as home.
All that moving taught Blossom a valuable lesson of sorts: “We had movers."
Never Stop Giving Back
But moving to Montana was the last thing Toews wanted to do — in fact, early in her marriage, the North Dakotan told her husband she would move anywhere but.
In the early 1960s, the couple had only recently finished building out their farm in North Dakota when a bulletin at their church caught her late husband's eye. It was seeking a couple with carpentry skills to move to the Lame Deer Reservation in southeastern Montana for 6 months.
It was a bad year for crops, however, so despite her reservations about moving, Toews agreed to a visit to the reservation.
"Oh my goodness, I'll never forget," she recalled about driving around the reservation at night, and seeing the figures of Northern Cheyenne people who were still living in teepees.
The rest, as Toews said, is history: The couple moved to Lame Deer, Montana, and fell in love with the community and state, and their work on the reservation spurred decades of work lobbying and advocating for Native Americans and housing issues.
Toews became a licensed pilot during that time, as well.
If given some magical opportunity, Toews would go back to that era in Lame Deer “in a New York minute," she said. "They gave me so much.”
Favorite Place
Likewise other centenarians would travel back in time — to the 1940s for Stimac, when she got married and had children, and to the 1950s for Blossom, for the same reasons.
But they wouldn't trade the place where it all happened.
For Janssen, who traveled to all 50 states and several countries, her favorite place?
“Well, I suppose home,” she said. “I was fortunate to live there all my married life.”
