Amazing Grace!

My Mom's best friend and my other mother, Grace, turns 100 today:

As she closes in on her 100th birthday, Grace Engesser Paquette’s secret to longevity in life can’t really be attributed to one particular thing. Instead she feels its a variety of factors that have come into play.

“I’ve thought a lot about that lately and I just think life was just so much simpler and things were much easier when I was growing up which really helped,” Grace said. “When we were kids growing up on the farm we didn’t have all these fertilizers and chemicals they use today. We grew everything we ate. We raised our own vegetables and had a orchard for fruit and also raised livestock for meat. My mother always made sure we ate a very balanced diet and I’ve passed that on to my own children as well.

“Children these days seem to have to be so driven and many don’t really get a chance to be kids.

“I also think I’ve been fortunate to have some pretty good family genes. There are several people in my family who have lived a long time and I’m happy to keep up the family tradition,” she quipped.

Thanks Flash for posting this for me,
I posted once before about my other Mom.
When I read the book Water for Elephants, I thought about Grace.
That was her early life, she and her husband Harold traveled with the Engesser
Circus. Grace was one of those beautiful bareback horse riders.

Mom and Grace spent a couple winters in Arizona, and also did some traveling with a couple other friends
Grace is the last of the ladies, only one other made it to 100 before she died.

She could easily pass for 80 years old so I expect her to be around for sometime.