'Grandma Lillie' Still Feisty at 108
Posted on: Friday, 29 April 2005, 18:00 CDT
OAKES, N.D. - At age 108, Lillie Ratzlaff has lived through 20 U.S. presidents and three centuries. She's known as a card shark, a bit of a fortune teller, and a bit of a flirt.
"She was a women's libber before there was women's lib," said great-granddaughter Kimberly Dillavoua, of Aberdeen, S.D.
Lillie Gertrude (Lahman) Ratzlaff was born Oct. 8, 1896, near Hecla, S.D.. She has lived at the Good Samaritan Center in Oakes since 1999.
Ratzlaff had two children - a son, Ervin Hurlbert, 84, who lives in Montana, and his half sister, the late Agnes Lanphere. She has five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren. Her first husband, Marion Hurlbert, and her last husband, Gus Ratzlaff, died earlier.
Granddaughter Linda Hurlbert White, of Deer Lodge, Mont., says Ratzlaff was a hard worker, and was in the restaurant business in North Dakota communities and in Aberdeen decades ago.
For fun, Ratzlaff enjoyed crocheting and liked to read people's fortunes with a regular deck of cards, White said.
Dillavou said she remembers "Grandma Lillie," didn't get a color TV until the late 1980s.
"She didn't really like the change," Dillavou said. After awhile, she had someone turn the color off.
White recalls that her grandmother never wanted to go to Montana because of the mountains and said she liked the flatness of the Dakotas "because I can see for 10 miles and see what the neighbors are doing."
Ratzlaff lived her own in an apartment until she was nearly 103, when she moved to the Good Samaritan Center in Oakes.
"She's fabulous," said Sandy Jacobson, a 12-year certified nursing assistant. It's wonderful, she said, "when you can be a little feisty at 108."
White and Dillavou have some theories what has kept Grandma Lillie alive so long - ranging from the water around Hecla, to her use of kerosene to cure any ailment, to her character.
"Her stubbornness ... I really believe that," White said.
Dillavou remembers her great-grandmother's theory on aging: "You are as old as you believe you are."
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
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