105 years a piece of cake for Houlton woman

HOULTON – Five years ago, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, Lala (pronounced Lay-la) Adams sat down for an interview with the Bangor Daily News. When the Canadian-born senior citizen was asked how she stayed so healthy, her unconventional answer came quickly: “I mind my own business.”

Perhaps Adams has found the secret of a long, hearty life, because yesterday, the Drake’s Hill resident turned 105.

Unlike many people younger than she, Adams doesn’t need a hearing aid and her eyeglasses remain unused most of the time. She stopped driving her car when she turned 103, but “not because I was pulled over by the police or had an accident,” she maintains. “I just stopped driving.”

Sitting in her living room alongside her constant companion, a 30-plus-year-old parrot named Polly, she seemed almost nonchalant about the fact that she has lived in three centuries.

“I haven’t got a lick of pain,” she announced, turning to her sister-in-law Alice Varney. “Am I really 105?”

Known as “Ducky” to her friends, Adams was born in Eel River, New Brunswick, in 1899. Her parents and nine siblings came to Houlton when she was in grammar school, and even though she can’t remember the year, she knows that she graduated from Houlton High School. She moved to Manchester, N.H., shortly after she got married, had a daughter, and remained in the state until 1970.

It was the death of her nephew, local sports hero Willie Varney, that brought her back to Maine. After his death, she never returned to New Hampshire.

She quit her job as a nurse after settling in Houlton, but a pair of nursing shoes, now off-white but still sporting the trademark thick soles, rests beside her couch. After her move back to town, she married a second time.

She doesn’t get out much anymore, but she doesn’t really mind. Family members come to see her, she said, and attendants help her with household chores. She is entertained by Polly, who spends most of his time atop his metal cage with a fierce eye trained on visitors.

“He’s an awfully smart bird, but he was quite expensive,” she recalled, nodding at the lime-green bird. “He talks to me in the morning and calls me by name, and he comes and sits by my feet to guard me when someone he doesn’t know comes in.”

As her life has progressed, she has seen some of the most fascinating events of the 20th century unfold. She has witnessed the inauguration of 18 presidents, watched women earn the right to vote in 1920, and lived through the onset and eradication of polio. Closer to home, she recalled fondly this week time spent playing cards, taking trips to New Brunswick to pick strawberries, and keeping busy by knitting and hooking rugs.

But it has been hard, she admitted, outliving most of her friends and family. Although she treasures memories of the past, she is most grateful for the comfortable life that she maintains in the present.

“Most people, when they get old, would be grateful to have what I’ve got,” she acknowledged, gesturing at her comfortable surroundings. “I’ve got a beautiful home, I don’t have to worry about money, and I have people that come to see me. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.”