Susie Ford has lived a life of self-sufficiency. She gets up at 5 every morning to feed her dog, Coco.
Editor's Note: National Centenarian's Day is Sept. 22. The day honors those who've celebrated 100 birthdays or more. We're publishing profiles of people who have hit this milestone. 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.
Every morning before dawn, Susie Ford is up.
Coco, her little dog, is waiting. At 5 a.m., she gets out of bed, fills her bowl and starts her day in the quiet house she has lived in for decades.
"I wake up with Coco," Susie said, smiling. "She needs her breakfast."
At 103 years old, Susie lives alone, takes care of her home and gets exercise from household chores. "Cleaning up the house and cooking keeps me moving," she said. She also still drives.
Self-sufficient from an early age
Susie was born in Arkansas, the youngest of nine children. When she turned 13, she started cooking all the meals for her siblings.
She married at 18, but almost immediately her path shifted. With her husband in military service during World War II, she left Arkansas and moved to Washington state with friends, seeking work and new experiences. There, she joined the wartime workforce, building B-17 bombers during a period when few women, and especially few Black women, were doing that kind of work.
"I never would have thought that I could work on an airplane," she said. "I remember seeing the airplanes overhead and watching them [as a child]. That was something unusual. Women didn't do that [kind of work] before the war."
She also worked on the railroad and served as a nurse's aide in a hospital, fulfilling an early dream to help people. "I wanted to be a nurse because I liked helping folks," she said.
In 1952, she moved to Alaska, a place she says she came to love more than anywhere else she had lived. She worked as a nurse at Providence Hospital (now Providence Alaska Medical Center) and later met her second husband while working in a restaurant. He came in often to eat, and although she initially declined his invitations, he persisted. "He wouldn't let the other waitresses take his orders. He kept asking me out," she laughed, "and finally I said yes."
The couple opened a café together and ran it for about two years before closing the business after a shooting occurred. Susie then took a job with the local school district, where she worked for more than seven years before retiring.
An eye on history
Despite her success in multiple jobs, Susie's life was marked by pervasive discrimination. She remembers places where African Americans were not welcome, separate water fountains and restaurants that refused service. She remembered being told to enter through kitchens instead of front doors to dining establishments, a suggestion she rebuffed. On one occasion in Anchorage, while waiting in line to collect unemployment benefits, a man hurled a racial slur at her simply for joining her colleague in line.
These experiences left deep impressions, yet Susie refused to be defined by barriers. She said prejudice still exists today, though it is often less visible than it once was. "A lot of times they try to cover it up," she said.
She remembers the 1964 earthquake vividly. She had just finished making dinner when the ground began to shake. The trailer she and her husband were living in rocked violently, but she stayed at the table until her husband urged her outside. "The ground was moving like waves," she said. They ended up laughing through the shock of it all, something she still recounts with a mix of anxiety and astonishment.
Faith as a source of strength
Today, Susie's routine may be quieter, but it is no less full. She reads her Bible daily, follows the news, tends her house and watches Coco wander through the rooms. Her mind stays sharp. "At my age now, I thank the Lord for good health," she said. "With a clear mind."
"She never stops," her granddaughter said. "She's still living her life."
Susie's faith has been her source of strength through loss, the deaths of friends, family and her husband. When asked how she handles grief, Susie did not pretend it was easy. "I cry a lot," she said. "If it hadn't been for prayer, I probably would've went crazy. Prayer is what keeps me steady."
"I stay up, I stay busy," she affirmed. "That's how I do it."
For younger generations, her advice is simple: love and care for others and hold tight to your own path.
"Love God. And love your neighbor," she said. "That's what I would tell them."
Susie continues to live life by her own rules: keeping her routines, her home and her sense of purpose intact.
