SEQUIM — One thing you shouldn’t expect Helen Marie Simons Gamroth to do is try to break a record with her age.
“I hope I can carry on for as long as I can — but don’t expect me to be making any records,” she said at her birthday party Sunday, the day after her official 105th birthday.
“Let me tell you, enough is enough.
“I feel my age a little by little, but I just keep on going.”
Gamroth was joined by about 36 friends and family to honor her momentous birthday.
Proclamation
Also joining the crowd was Sequim Mayor Pro Tem Laura Dubois, who presented a proclamation celebrating Gamroth’s achievement.
Dubois also read messages from President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle; Gov. Chris Gregoire; and Gamroth’s favorite actress Betty White.
For her 102nd birthday, she received a letter from Queen Elizabeth of England.
“I just wonder if all of this is a little ridiculous,” Gamroth said, dismissing the occasion’s importance.
“I am very happy because everyone made it here.
“There are so many old friends and new ones here today.”
What’s the secret?
She said she couldn’t lay claim to her success in aging.
“People always ask me my secret to my years,” she said.
“I think it is a combination of good health, good genes and good relatives, and our Lord God.”
The party also brought light to her artwork.
Close friend Naomi Kaminski, who befriended Helen Gamroth when she first moved to Sequim in 2004, said she still has a watercolor painting of herself cooking that Gamroth had done.
Although Kaminski played down her role in visiting Gamroth, many others said she visits nearly daily.
“When my own mother-in-law died, I promised myself that I would visit with another mother-in-law for an hour a day,” she said.
“And now that she is living in a nursing home instead of with [Gamroth’s son and daughter-in-law] Neil and Pepper, I go down and walk down to lunch with her frequently.”
About a year ago, Gamroth moved to Sequim Health and Rehab Center.
New to exercise
There, she starting doing physical therapy — the first time that she has exercised on a regular basis.
Another friend, Carleen Godwin, said: “She is really an incredible woman.
Godwin, who is a best friend to daughter-in-law Pepper, said she also dines from time to time with Gamroth.
Dubois said it was her first encounter with the centenarian.
“It is really a lot of fun, and we are so honored to have Helen here in Sequim,” Dubois said.
Pepper Gamroth said Helen has enjoyed the natural beauty of Sequim since relocating to the area from her lifelong home of Wisconsin, though she visited Chicago where her two other children, Janet and Tom, live when she was 103.
“She took this life-changing event in stride and with grace,” Pepper Gamroth said.
“She was in awe and still is of the natural beauty here — the snow-capped mountains which she never tires of looking at, the size and number of evergreens, the magnificence of our beaches and waterways, the serenity of our lakes.
“To a flatlander used to farmland as far as the eye could see once one was out of settlements, these are wonders to behold.”
The Sunday event was organized by Neil and Pepper Gamroth.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
