By Khalida Sarwari
Four generations will pack into the Palace Hotel in San Francisco this weekend to celebrate Claire Peterson’s birthday. But this is not any ordinary birthday: Peterson will be blowing out 100 candles.
Peterson is a resident in the independent living unit of the Saratoga Retirement Community, a place she’s called home for the past 10 years. She has a caregiver who comes by in the morning and helps her get her day started, but after that she’s on her own, playing bridge–if not on her smartphone with friends by then–or Mahjong, or attending a lecture, dancing, catching a movie or having dinner with friends. She loves fashion and makeup and can’t resist a shopping outing at Nordstrom with her daughter, Cynthia Messer, or a trip to the beach. Until seven years ago, she could still drive.
“It’s just remarkable,” said Messer. “We’re all blessed to have her in our lives. It’s just an incredible thing to have her around for so long. She teaches you how to live.”
Enjoying a quiet afternoon in her stylish apartment a week before her birthday, Peterson, decked in jewels, manicured nails, rosy cheeks and crimson lips, reflected on the highs and lows of her long life.
She lamented that people her age tend not to be interested in learning new things. It’s a wondrous thing, she said, that a device that can be held in the palm of the hand has the capacity to connect one to others and to information instantly. Up until now, the primary place where people could go to learn was school, she said, and now learning can happen anytime, anywhere.
“I think that’s the most profound discovery that I’ve witnessed,” she said.
The tech savvy centenarian has embraced the Internet and social media. She has email and Facebook accounts, uses Skype and FaceTime to keep in touch with family, and is just as attached to her phone as are younger generations.
“I can’t understand some of the people around here that don’t use these instruments to keep in contact,” she said.
Peterson traces her enthusiasm for embracing change back to her youth, when she was a member of a group that followed a credo advocated by Ralph Waldo Emerson about the power of positive thinking. It could be the cloudiest day, but when her grandchildren call to ask how things are going, more often than not, Peterson’s answer is, “It’s beautiful here!”
“Sometimes it’s not easy to feel that way, but I would say that’s my basic philosophy,” she said. “If you’re thinking negatively, it doesn’t do a thing for you and it destroys your thinking.”
Born on Nov. 18, 1914, in Montreal, Canada, Peterson and her family moved to San Francisco when she was 5 after her father died during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic. She’s been in the Bay Area since, marrying her first husband, Albert Ludwig, and raising two daughters with him on the peninsula before he was killed tragically in 1976. His death prompted Peterson, a lifelong housewife and community volunteer, to enter the workforce for the first time at age 62 and take over the operation of his marine sales company. She was married to her second husband, Walt Peterson, for 16 years until he died of a heart attack in 1993. She met her third and final partner, Morey Gross, at the age of 80. They would go on to travel the world together until he died of lung cancer in 2008.
Peterson considers the events of the 20th century with mixed feelings.
Her husband, Al, was exempt from conscription in World War II due to a childhood illness, but she recalls being devastated when her friends were called up for military service after the Pearl Harbor attack and the internment of Japanese Americans that resulted from that.
“It was unusual for us to feel that somebody could attack us at home,” she said.
The Holocaust was another poignant time for Peterson, who is of Jewish faith. Though she was fortunate not to be closely affected by that event, she was instrumental in donating to and working with organizations that assisted survivors and was a supporter of Hadassah in the late 1940s and early ’50s. She later went on to help found Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.
In general, Peterson feels optimistic about the world today. There are more organizations and institutions that help people than ever and people have more power to influence change, she said.
“I think we have more control today as a citizen, because people didn’t speak up the way they do today or demonstrate if they believed in something,” she said. “We were more of the cowardice type.”
For the most part life has been kind to her, Peterson said. Some of the greatest times she’s had were when she was actively working and volunteering. She credits her long life and health to her positive outlook, staying busy and the privilege of being surrounded by family and friends that shower her with affection. Seeing her family grow still brings her the greatest joy, Peterson said. She has three grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
“I’m a people person,” she said. “I would perish without people. I’ve been lucky that all my family is close to me. I attribute a lot of my happiness to that–and a lot of my good health.”
Her youngest sibling is still alive and lives in San Francisco. He is 98. With several of her five siblings living until 98 or 99, it appears that longevity runs in Peterson’s family. And though she jokes about whether she’ll still be around to celebrate her 100th birthday, her doctor recently informed her she is in excellent health. She doesn’t wear glasses or use a hearing aid and started to use a walker only in the last year. She has no dietary restrictions and is especially a fan of dessert and likes to have a glass of wine before bed at night–not for its health benefits, but because she enjoys the effect.
“I always thought I was going to live this long,” she said. “It was like a tradition that I was supposed to live that long. But I’m very fortunate because a lot of people at this age are in pain, and I’m surrounded by them.”
So what remains on her bucket list? Perhaps a skydiving jaunt a la Eleanor Cunningham of New York, who recently did her third jump to celebrate her 100th birthday? After living through the most turbulent times of the 20th century, Peterson now finds the greatest thrills in the minutiae of everyday life.
“I’ve really lived just about through everything that I’ve ever wanted with lots of wonderful kids and family,” she said. “Being able to enjoy eating all this wonderful food and to enjoy life. I know I’m spoiled, but it’s nice to be spoiled by good things.”
Aside from losing her husbands, she said she doesn’t harbor many regrets.
“I never learned how to play the piano, but I never wanted to,” she joked.
Link: Tell Claire Peterson happy birthday … for the 100th time!
