Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of living to be 100, this magical number that seemed to signal you had made it and completed your life. However, after sitting down with Edith Countryman shortly after her 100th birthday, I am finding age is really just a number.
“I never expected to live this long. And to be 100 is no different than to be 99. It’s just one night goes by, and the next day comes and you are a hundred, but everybody around me sure thinks it’s wonderful,” she says with a smile. “The celebration has been for me, but I really think it’s also been for all the people who’ve given me this great life. And maybe it’s just lifted all of our spirits a little bit.” According to Edith, she is always in favor of a party because we often wait for something bad to happen before we gather together.
We are sitting in her apartment at Panorama in Lacey, where Edith still lives independently. She grocery shops, cooks her meals and even has cookies waiting for me at the table. I am taken aback by how young she looks and how well she gets around, so of course I ask what her secret is. With a laugh she tells me, “I don’t know. I just think good genes maybe.” She explains that her father lived into his seventies and her mother to eighty-nine, quite an accomplishment for two people who took a horse and buggy to their wedding.
Just as her parents saw many changes in their lifetime, Edith is no exception. “Change comes, and you have to be accepting of it wherever life takes you. I’ve had a wonderful span of life. I think the technology of communication is the biggest thing that’s happened in my lifetime. The internet and television, I can remember when my folks got their first radio.” She says getting that radio was a big event in her family because it not only brought entertainment but also education. And, as I am quickly finding out from our visit, Edith and her generation have a lot they can also teach us.
Born the daughter of a Methodist pastor, Edith spent most of her years living in the Pacific Northwest and followed in her parents’ footsteps by graduating from the University of Puget Sound. She would also keep with tradition and become the wife of a Methodist pastor, which allowed her to live all over Washington state. “I was going to be an English literature teacher, but I got married instead. In those days they did not hire married teachers. However, it was a good decision.”
It was a decision that resulted in three sons, 11 grandkids, 24 great-grandchildren and a marriage of 70 years, something you just do not see much anymore. I wonder aloud how they did it. “Well it takes a wonderful man in the first place,” Edith explains. “And I have to say, this is really the truth, in all my married life he never said one cross word to me. He was a quiet, loving caring person, and I was blessed to be part of his family. Life is made up of relationships with people; that’s what enriches it. I’ve had lots of great people that have been part of my life, and I’m really grateful for all that has come my way.”
If there is one core theme that seems to run through Edith’s life, it is her faith, which she tells me she actually got from her mother. Even at the age of 100, she attends St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church every Sunday and is very active with UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. This national non-profit sends supplies to areas that have suffered natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods.
And in honor of Edith’s recent birthday, the children of her church decided to get involved by making 100 red hygiene kits to distribute. “What a gift that these kids would want to do something for somebody else. Not necessarily a monetary or physical gift for me, but a gift that would help somebody. I was just so proud of them.” When they presented her with 150 kits, it is no wonder she shed a few tears.
It is stories like this that make up the amazing life of Edith Countryman, a woman I am now blessed to know, who has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. She tells me that, thanks to a writing class at Panorama, she has been able to put her story down on paper for future generations. “I have written all that I want to write of the years, and it’s a whole bunch of stuff because it’s been a long and wonderful life. I’m the last, and if they don’t get it from me, they aren’t going to get it.”
However, even at 100 years old, Edith’s story is far from over. “I have to wonder about the next fifty or hundred years and how life will be. What will we be seeing in twenty years from now even; it will be so different because things are happening so much faster now,” she says.
What will not be different is the many great words of advice from a wonderful woman, such as these which stick with me. “A clean house is important in some ways, but not nearly as important as the people who live in it. Your relationships mean more than if you got the bathroom floor scrubbed.”
