MARYSVILLE — Marysville Care Center residents Jean Glab and Trudy Beardsley were able to toast each other’s health over a shared 101st birthday cake on Thursday, Feb. 16.
For Glab the celebration came a few days early, since she was born on Feb. 20, 1911, in Chicago, but for Beardsley, who was born on Feb. 16, 1911, in Centralia, Wash., it was right on time. Both women were joined by family and friends, including Glab’s niece, Evelyn Slade, and Beardsley’s daughter, Mary Ames. Both Slade and Ames expressed pride in their relatives’ longevity and deemed them “amazing.”
“Jean was always my favorite aunt,” Slade said.
“Trudy’s been a wonderful mother,” Ames said.
Both Glab and Beardsley were born only 11 years after the Wright brothers flew their first glider in 1900. Glab was one of six siblings, while Beardsley was one of five.
Jean met her husband, Anton Glab, in Chicago at her sister’s bar, and they married in 1942. Trudy was married to Howard Beardsley for more than 60 years.
While the Glabs had one son, David, the Beardsleys had three children — son Ron, and daughters Doris and Mary — as well as eight grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
In addition to opening a Texaco station in Everett with her husband in 1956, Jean Glab also worked for Zenith before the Great Depression, and went on to tutor grade school children, teaching them how to read. Since coming to the Marysville Care Center, she’s also served as president of the Resident Council and as a queen in the Marysville Strawberry Festival.
Trudy Beardsley is an experienced seamstress and knitter who still wears clothes she made for herself.
While Beardsley shares Glab’s love of reading, Beardsley would rather watch the birds outside of her bedroom window than the scary old movies favored by Glab. Just as Beardsley also enjoys strawberry milkshakes and visiting with others, so too does Glab enjoy writing and exercising.
When asked how she’s managed to live so long, Glab said, “I do a lot of walking. Always keep walking.” Beardsley’s advice was even more simple, as she said, “Just breathe in and out.”
