Jean Armstrong likes this recent photo of herself. It was taken on her 103rd birthday in August 2025.
Jean Armstrong grew up in Chicago, worked in San Francisco during World War II, and has lived in Alaska many years. She always had an adventurous spirit. "The desire to travel has never abandoned me," she said.
Jean Armstrong at age 16 in Chicago.
Jean Armstrong was 23 years old when this photo was taken, about six months after World War II ended.
Editor's Note: National Centenarian's Day was Sept. 22. The day honors those who've celebrated 100 birthdays or more. We're publishing several profiles of people who have hit this milestone this fall. The Alaska Commission on Aging is working with the Governor's Office, Pioneer Homes and Long Term Care Ombudsman to celebrate Alaska's centenarians.
This interview was made possible thanks to the Alaska Commission on Aging.
Genevieve Armstrong, known as Jean, has lived long enough to see airplanes go from daring experiments to everyday miracles, and she never stopped wanting to fly. "These were the wild and uninhibited 1930s," she said. "I was certainly going to fly an airplane one day, just like Amelia."
Born on a farm in Indiana and raised in Chicago during the Great Depression, Armstrong's childhood was marked by both hardship and imagination. She built trapezes in her basement out of broom handles and bicycle tubes, dreamed of circus acrobatics, loved playing baseball, and marveled at the bravery of women like Amelia Earhart. She was recruited as a pitcher for the Chicago baseball team much like the movie "A League of Their Own." It was a time when radio was king, when "walking home on the tracks at night" counted as adventure, and when children learned resilience early.
During World War II, Armstrong worked in San Francisco at Fort Mason, serving as a secretary for military officers with secret clearance. It was demanding work that kept her close to the heart of the nation's war effort. When the news broke that the war had ended, she and her colleagues were among the first to hear it.
"The whole building went silent for a moment," she remembered. "Then, within minutes, we could hear horns and shouts from the street below." That night, she joined thousands of jubilant San Franciscans flooding Market Street in celebration. "It was just pure joy," she said. "People were hugging strangers, waving flags, dancing on the sidewalks-the city was alive."
In the 1940s, she joined the airline industry as a stewardess, with little training but endless perseverance. "My employer didn't know I'd never even strapped on the complicated military seatbelts," she wrote of her first flight aboard a DC-3. "They hired me anyway." She flew routes from Florida to Cuba and New York, sometimes with boisterous passengers and turbulent skies, but she loved every minute.
That spirit of independence became the defining theme of Armstrong's life. When her husband left the family, she found herself raising five children alone without steady work or even a car that always ran. "It was just me and the kids," she recalled. "Five children, no money, and a rented house." She loaded them into a U-Haul, drove across states to be with her family, and started over. Jean described those years as difficult but defining.
Her determination was quiet but fierce. She found ways to keep her family afloat, working in restaurants, managing properties, and later launching her own travel agency, Armstrong Travel, which became a full-fledged business in the Chicago area. Eventually, she owned and operated five travel agencies in the U.S. "I had many friends in business," she said, including other strong women who helped her.
She traveled the world, from Italy to Africa, California to Hawaii, and beyond. "The desire to travel has never abandoned me," she reflected. One of her most memorable experiences was attending the Whaling Festival in Barrow in 2005, flying there coincidentally in a DC-3S flown by her daughter, Andrea's flight company, TransNorthern Aviation, and fulfilling a lifelong wish to witness that cultural celebration above the Arctic Circle. Even in her 90s, she was undeterred by the long, cold flights. "We walked a mile into town, and I sat on a five-gallon bucket with the women," she reminisced and smiled. "They offered me raw whale, but I decided to just look."
In Alaska, Armstrong found not just adventure but belonging. She spent summers surrounded by family in Talkeetna and always stayed active: writing, painting, cooking, and collecting memories. Her home became a gathering place filled with laughter, music, and the smell of coffee. "She never goes a day without her coffee," her family says, recalling the daily ritual that has fueled Jean for decades.
Faith also guided her journey. While living in Italy after the war, Armstrong received Holy Communion from the beloved Padre Pio, now a Catholic saint. The encounter became one of her most treasured memories, a touchstone for the faith that carried her through the hardest times.
When asked what she regretted, she said simply, "I would have liked to have had more college education." But she also added that she was glad to have chosen a life of travel and independence. Her advice to the next generation is practical and wise: "Spend half and never think you're above any job. Any job is better than no job."
Even now, her words illustrate a woman who lived life by her own design. "It's not the years in your life that count," she quoted Abraham Lincoln. "It's the life in your years."
At 103, Jean Armstrong's life tells a story of courage that never retired: from Chicago's smoky city blocks to Alaska's northern lights, one woman's century-long flight toward freedom, family, faith, and joy.
