Gardnerville resident Mabel Bergesen celebrated her 100th birthday with dinner with her daughter at Danny's Ironwood Grill in Minden on Dec. 4.
Born Dec. 2, 1908, in Centerville, Iowa, she said she has been healthy all her life.
"My mother said I was disgustingly healthy," she said. "All of us kids were. There were six of us, but I'm the only one left."
The daughter of a minister from the Disciples of Christ, who was called to a higher position in the church, she said she attended college in Missouri and then went to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
"That's where my parents met and married," she said. "But my father didn't want me to go that far away to school. We lived in Kansas City, so I went to a junior college in Fulton, Mo., which was also associated with the church."
Her father was John H. Booth, who was the first president of the church extension. He served the Disciples from 1911 to 1948 and was featured in The Disciple magazine in 1984.
She married Oscar Bergesen and taught school for many years in Chicago before she retired to Los Angeles, where her son lived.
"We eventually landed in San Jose before we moved here," she said. "I had no idea what Nevada was like before I moved here."
The family arrived in Gardnerville in 2003.
"Everywhere I've lived has been a good place," she said. "It's been a good life, in spite of the illnesses and operations. I've always recovered and now I'm disgustingly healthy again."
