Betty Calhoon has lived in Alaska since 1949. She turned 100 on Independence Day this year.
A photo of Betty and her brother, Dick, before the family left South Dakota and came to Portland, Oregon.
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. After we published this story, Betty Calhoon died. We mourn her and send condolences to her family.
Betty L. Calhoon says she was born on a lucky star. That's because she was born July 4, 1926. The day we met, she was 100 years and 10 days old.
A child of the Depression, Betty's family left Cavour, South Dakota, where she was born, and headed to Portland, Oregon, when she was 9. By then, a baby sister had died of whooping cough.
"The baby didn't live very long," Betty said. "It was just like COVID."
But she has happy memories of her early childhood, as well, such as playing Red Rover with her uncles. She also had a pony named Dimples that she would ride to school.
Hard-scrabble early days
Betty was married in 1945 to James F. Calhoon, who had been in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. In 1949, he traveled to Fairbanks via the Alaska Highway with a couple of friends. After finding a job as a carpenter, he sent for his wife and daughter, Jeri, who was 22 months old.
While James worked construction in Fairbanks, Betty held down household chores, such as washing diapers in an Easy Spindrier washing machine and hanging them up to dry. They rented homes at first, though they bought two adjacent lots in what became the Hamilton Acres subdivision.
The couple worked hard to build their home, with Betty remembering that she mixed cement for the foundation of their first house. James, meanwhile, would work during the day and come home to more construction duties.
In addition to Jeri, born in 1947, the couple had Steve, born in 1950, and Becky, born in 1954.
When Jeri and Becky urge her to tell more stories - about outhouse burning parties and cesspool digs - she is direct. "We could go on forever so let's don't."
Later years
The family moved around the state as James took different jobs, first as a member of the Fairbanks Police Department, then as a territorial police officer. With statehood, James became an Alaska State trooper. Later, under Gov. Walter J. Hickel, James became Alaska deputy commissioner for Public Safety, and the family lived in Juneau.
The couple divorced in 1972, and Betty began working outside the home when her youngest child was a teen. She started doing temporary clerical work. She worked her way up and into more positions of responsibility with the State of Alaska. She also worked for the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, a job she retired from in 1989.
Her daughters describe Betty's formidable organizational skills and say she would have made a good accountant. She kept track of her own medicines until very recently.
Betty sometimes gets confused about dates or she might mix up the name of her deceased son for her deceased brother. These moments are fleeting. She is sharp enough to joke about the discomfort of certain undergarments and what happens to our bodies as we age. She is clear about what she wants her remaining time to be like, and she isn't crazy about waiting around.
"I have a strong mind," she said.
Always an industrious person-she was an avid knitter and a champion ice curler in her 50s-she looks athletic and tomboyish in a pixie hairstyle and black-rimmed glasses.
Betty moved into the Pioneer Home in 2018, but until the COVID-19 pandemic, was still taking trips with her family. Mexico was a favorite destination. A time-share allowed family members from a wide geographic area to gather and spend time together. She has eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
She hopes she's imparted to them what her parents imparted to her: "Common sense and love." Then she says her attitude conforms with the saying that whatever will be, will be. I've always had the attitude, 'Que sera sera.'"
