‘What a life:’ Little bit of mischief never hurt Dayton centenarian (video)
Velma Thornburgh of Dayton is celebrating her 101st birthday Saturday with her daughter, Sandra Bell, and a few close friends in their home. (Photo: Jessica Garcia/Nevada Appeal)
Velma Thornburgh of Dayton insists she’s not turning 101 on Saturday, preferring to knock off a year or two – or six. It keeps her feeling young. “I don’t feel any different than I did when I was 95,” she said Wednesday. “Really, I’ve been blessed with good health.” She loves to read the Bible and Verdict magazine and she’ll sing a verse of an old Ford jingle for just about anyone who’s willing to listen. Her stories, though, of her shenanigans as a schoolgirl on giant stride playground equipment and toilet papering on Halloween and of family memories living through the Great Depression are sharp and provide an engaging historical perspective and she continues to share them with anyone she meets. Thornburgh’s daughter, Sandra Bell, is celebrating her mother’s 101st birthday, as well as her milestone 100th year in a private Hawaiian picnic luau in their new Dayton home among some of their closest friends today. Bell said she was expecting at least 60 to attend today, including family and friends from Nevada, California and Illinois. The pandemic took hold last year just as the mother and daughter had their initial big plans that would have included the local fire and police departments providing a parade in her honor and the mayor giving her a key to the city. This year, however, Bell said she’s happy her mother remains in excellent health, still never having been impacted by COVID-19 and still sharp, needing nearly very little physical assistance for the most part. Thornburgh, born on April 10, 1920, in Brownstown, Ill., which still remains a small village, recalled as some of the remarkable sights from her lifetime seeing a dirigible sail into port with a few sailors waving. She also recalled having coffee with female friends who worked as manual switchboard telephone operators in high school. But some of her more mischievous memories, according to her and Bell, was a Halloween toilet papering prank in which she and some friends applied Scotch tape and toilet paper to a row of boys’ toilets in her large, eight-level schoolhouse and playground in Brownstown as well as some of the playground equipment as well as a “Christmas gift” for the superintendent. “We toilet papered a row of swings and that giant stride and the teeter-totter, and we, oh, boy, I tell you, I thought I was going to get in trouble for that!” Thornburgh said. She also said she left a gift for the school superintendent under the Christmas tree one year. “I swear, he never did take a bath, and for one Christmas, we bought soap and wrapped it up and put it under the tree Christmas tree for him,” she said. “I got worried about it and told Mom about it, ‘Mom, you think I could go back up there and take it all down?’ And Mom said, ‘Nope!’ And that wasn’t like my poor little Christian mother.” While she enjoyed her childhood, her faith kept her on the right track. Living in Sonora, Calif. as a young adult, her father was a minister at United Methodist Church, and their family faithfully served their congregation. But when he died, the congregation was unable to find another pastor to replace him, so Thornburgh stepped up and provided the sermons during the church’s time of loss. Bell said while the spiritual plane has changed today, during Thornburgh’s day, their church desperately needed her to serve in her capacity then. “They didn’t like women ministers in all the years I grew up, and I wanted to be a minister, and my parents were very much against because they said women are not ministers, and now women are going into it now, of course,” Bell said. “But it was a small church, and they really loved my mom and my dad and they needed everybody they could get, and she gave a good lesson.” Bell is eager to welcome her guests for her mother’s party today, including five generations of family members beginning with Thornburgh, after settling into their new home. The house Bell recently purchased needed a bit of attention and was set up rather quickly for the party. The two had just moved Fernley, where they had lived for 16 years. More than 55 chairs are ready to go with meal boxes to be catered for the luau celebration. “People won’t have to worry about it,” Bell said. “And I’m still hoping people will have fun.” But as far as Thornburgh’s secret as for living so long, she’s very forthcoming. “I never smoked, I never drank and I never ran ‘round with dirty, old men,” she said. “…What a life I’ve had.”
