Port Angeles woman marks 100 years with music, active lifestyle

PORT ANGELES — Music has played a role throughout her life, and at 100 years old, Anne Todnem is continuing to share her talent and love for music with the community.

She has played and directed music at First United Methodist Church in Port Angeles for nearly three decades and performed Sunday as her congregation prepared to celebrate her milestone birthday.

Todnem said she figured that after everyone sat through the morning service and had brunch at the church, most would head home after a full morning. Instead, nearly 100 family and friends helped her celebrate her upcoming birthday, which is Tuesday.

“I never dreamed I would have a day like this,” said Todnem, who was born in Seattle. “It never occurred to me I’d ever have a 100th birthday and certainly not a party like this. It’s just been an overwhelming and beautiful thing for me.”

As her party started, The Messengers, a women’s singing group from Port Angeles and Sequim that Todnem directs, sang for her.

Todnem quietly sang along from the audience, holding back the urge to conduct the group she normally directs.

“I was amazed. I wanted to get up and start doing this,” she said while gesturing as if she were conducting. “I had a hard time keeping my hands down because normally I’d be in front of the group directing.”

She said music has been a part of her life from the beginning. She started singing at a young age and has always played piano.

“At 4 years old they would stand me up on a chair so I could sing,” she said, laughing. “I’ve played piano, sung in choirs, directed choirs and been a part of music at [many] different organizations.”

Todnem and her late husband Willard Todnem moved to Port Angeles from Enumclaw in 1987 where she had been teaching kindergarten and directing a church choir. The two were married for 57 years. He passed in 1998.

When she moved to Port Angeles, she immediately made herself part of the community, her daughter Jan Kiefer of Olympia said.

Todnem has made it an effort to volunteer wherever she could and has helped at schools in Port Angeles School District, at Olympic Medical Center and at the Port Angeles Senior Center, Kiefer said.

“She’s busy, busy, busy,” Kiefer, the youngest of three siblings, said of her mother. “I think that’s one of the reasons she’s doing so well, because she does keep busy and is always connected with people.”

Kiefer said she is thankful for a neighbor who helps her mother get around town and live on her own.

Todnem loves her home and where she lives — which includes an amazing view overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca — and has no plans of going to a retirement home, Kiefer said.

“That’s where old people live,” Kiefer said, laughing.

Other people get old, but her mother is still “up and going,” she said.

“It’s everything that she can be so active and still do so many things that she’s used to doing at this point in her life,” she said. “It’s pretty much as much as you could ever hope for.”

The Rev. Tom Steffen said he was grateful to see the church celebrate its organist’s birthday and said he has marveled at Todnem’s dedication to music and to helping others.

He said even within the last 6 months she asked if she could help coordinate the church’s weddings and she still helps with the church’s clothes closet.

“She still brings more than her amount to the task each week,” Steffen said. “She’s one of those rare people who still gives more than she takes away.”

He said every visit with her leaves him more inspired and uplifted.

In Todnem’s 100 years she has seen quite a bit of change and now she’s curious what the future will hold.

Born during World War I, she said she has been amazed at how the world has changed and how technology has evolved.

“I’m beginning to wonder what the next 100 years will be like if they continue at this pace of change,” she said.

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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.