Powell woman marking her 105th birthday this weekend

Residents can join Saturday afternoon parade to honor Mary See

Posted 7/23/20

Community members are invited to wish Powell’s oldest resident a happy birthday this weekend, as Mary See turns 105 years old.

“People ask me what I do to get so old,” See said in …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Powell woman marking her 105th birthday this weekend

Residents can join Saturday afternoon parade to honor Mary See

Posted

Community members are invited to wish Powell’s oldest resident a happy birthday this weekend, as Mary See turns 105 years old.

“People ask me what I do to get so old,” See said in an interview last week. “I say, hard work on a farm in Belfry.”

She and her late husband, Claude, farmed in Belfry, Montana, before moving to Powell around 1940 and farming a roughly 300-acre plot north of town for decades.

See now lives at the Powell Valley Care Center. Although her birthday isn't until Sunday, her family members have planned a Saturday parade in her honor.  They’re hoping to have 105 trucks, cars, horses, 4-H members, bikes, etc., join in to match See's 105 years.

Those interested in participating should meet at the former Shopko parking lot at 12:30 p.m. Saturday. The caravan will then travel past the care center, where See will be outside, and on to a reception at Washington Park. The names of the participants will be listed on a lineup card and later delivered to See — along with any birthday cards that folks might want to send.

While See’s granddaughter, Susan Olsen, is hoping to get at least 105 entries in the makeshift parade, more are welcome. Olsen has 130 slots on her lineup card and “no one’s getting turned away,” she said.

The parade is part of an effort to celebrate See’s milestone birthday amid a COVID-19 pandemic that has greatly limited the ability for friends and family to visit with her.

“This should have been way bigger than it is,” Olsen said.

  

From Oregon to Powell

Originally from Oregon, See’s path to Wyoming can be traced back, in a roundabout way, to her husband, Claude.

The couple married in August 1932, when she was 17; a Model T served as their wedding car.

Claude later lost his railroad job in Oregon amid the Great Depression, but as something of a severance package, the company offered a one-way ticket to the destination of his choice. He and Mary decided to go live near his family in Belfry, just north of the Wyoming border.

The Sees started out as hired hands, then took jobs in Powell around 1940, eventually buying some farm land north of town.

“They stayed at one farm all their lives after that,” explained Bob See, one of the couple’s three sons.

Added Olsen, “She [Mary] very much was part of that farm.”

Claude and Mary both served as local 4-H leaders and lived as husband and wife for more than six decades, until Claude’s death in 1999. He was 95, providing further evidence for Mary’s theory that hard work on a farm leads to long life.

Mary still owns the nearly 300-acre North End property and it remains in production.

As a child, Olsen recalled her grandparents having a garden that must have been at least an acre in size. “It was big,” she said, “and everybody worked.”

The farm is also where the couple raised Bob and his two brothers, Ronald and Roger, and the family has grown substantially over the decades.

“Oh heavenly days,” See says when asked to tally all her grandchildren. By Olsen’s count, there are 12 grandchildren, 30 great-grandkids and 26 great-great grandkids.

Claude and Mary moved to Powell amid World War II. The world has seen many changes in the decades since then, from the Space Race to the advent of the internet — where pictures of See have graced the Powell Valley Care Center’s Facebook page.

Through it all, See has maintained her sense of humor. When she fell from her bed earlier this year, center staff asked what happened.

“Oh,” she quipped, “just looking for a crumb.”

Aging isn’t easy and the pandemic has been particularly tough. The restrictions that health officials have put in place at nursing homes to try keeping out COVID-19 have also kept out visitors; last week was the first time in roughly four months that she’d been able to see Bob — and the visit was limited by face masks.

See wondered how long the disease is going to last and said she’s ready to go home to heaven.

But, Bob told her, “You can stay a little longer.”

(Editor's note: The print version of this story misstated the day of the parade.)

Comments