Three ladies in my motherline were blessed with celebrations for their 90th birthdays, although they chose different ways to mark their special occasions–one took her first plane trip, her oldest daughter enjoyed an open house, and the next one, also an oldest daughter asked for an excursion on a dinner train.
Great Grandmother Laura Jordan Goff, took her first plane trip to California in 1958. Laura was born in a Guthrie County log cabin, September 28, 1868. She nurtured a family of ten children (plus another who lived only a year), moving dozens of times, traveling mostly by horse and buggy or by train. She’d already taken the train to California to spend time with some of her children and grandchildren. But when she turned 90, she flew there with her oldest daughter, Leora.
My mother and her sister (Doris and Darlene) held an open house in1980 for their mother, Leora Goff Wilson, when she turned 90. Some of her great grandchildren were there to celebrate with the woman (born in Guthrie County, December 4, 1890) who had given birth to ten children, raised seven to adulthood, only to lose three during WWII. Later she’d made a home in Guthrie Center for her own mother for fourteen years.
Mom, Doris Wilson Neal, born in Guthrie County, August 30, 1918, didn’t want an open house. She asked to celebrate her 90th birthday with a ride on the Boone an Scenic Valley Dinner Train, so that’s what we did in August of 2008, including her sister Darlene and only grandchild, who traveled from the Twin Cities to attend.
If I’m blessed to live another ten years, I wonder what sort of celebration I’d enjoy. Maybe something with my only granddaughter, who will be 17 by then!