On the Town: Centenarian fills her life with history

The pace is slower for seasoned traveler Dorothy Arlene Waldron, but her interest in the world remains strong as she sits propped up comfortably in a hospital bed in her longtime Glendale home.

She will celebrate her 100th birthday next week with visits from family members and slices of Princess Cake, a delectable white torte filled with raspberries and whipped cream and topped with pale green marzipan frosting.

It’s a Swedish tradition, but Waldron isn’t Swedish, said her daughter, Carroll Ropp. It’s just her favorite.

Waldron was born on Aug. 28, 1916, in Des Moines, Iowa. Her parents moved the family to a farm in Lancaster, Calif., when she was 5 years old. She played the saxophone in the school band while attending Antelope Valley Union High School and graduated in 1934.

She came to Burbank to find work and met her husband-to-be, Leon Waldron, at the Burbank Church of the Nazarene. Their first date was a flight over Glendale in a single-engine airplane.

Dorothy Waldron was hired to work for the superintendent of the Chevy Chase Estates in 1937 on Chevy Chase Drive. Leon Waldron was the greens keeper at the Chevy Chase Country Club.

They were married in 1939 and realized their dream to live in the Chevy Chase Canyon, where she has continued to live for close to 80 years. Their first home was just a shack on Sheridan Road and, as they had their four children, Leon Waldron worked with a contractor to increase the living space.

In 1947, Dorothy Waldron became a founding member of the Chevy Chase Estates Garden Club, the brainchild of Ruby Barnett. When it began, the club had between 25 and 30 members and they kept busy planning fashion shows and open houses.

The couple supplemented their income by canning and selling cuttings from the juniper bushes, ivy and ivy geraniums on their property. In the winter of 1949, a major snow storm froze their inventory. At the same time, floods destroyed a nursery owned by Leon Waldron’s father in Sun Valley. The plants were washed into the street and people helped themselves.

The elder Waldron, disgusted by the public’s disregard for property, then sold the business to his son and he called it Sheridan Gardens Nursery — after Sheridan Road.

World travel was a perk of the business. Leon Waldron joined the California Assn. of Nurserymen, and members made several trips abroad. The Waldrons photographed the most beautiful gardens in the world and created slide shows for the family. They went to many countries, including England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy, but Dorothy Waldron’s favorite trips were to China and Japan.

“We walked on the Great Wall of China,” she said. “I never saw so many people in my life as in China.”

Sheridan Gardens grew to three locations and a landscape business. Over the years, most of the children and grandchildren worked in the business. Dorothy Waldron worked in the garden shop at one time. The nursery was sold in 2015, but a former son-in-law, Dave Junod, continues to run Sheridan Landscaping.

Leon Waldron passed away in 2010. Dorothy Waldron continues to live in the home on Graceland Way that they purchased in 1952. Her daughter and son-in-law, Carroll and Bill Ropp, live with her. The couple’s other children are Sterling Waldron, Gloria Waldron, who passed away in 2010, and Darrell Waldron, who passed away in 2006. There are also 19 grandchildren, 33 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Dorothy Waldron’s hobbies have been sewing and painting seascapes in oil. She used to attend the opera — “Carmen” and “La Boheme” to name a few — with friends dressed in the intricately beaded and quilted vests and jackets she made and calls “wearable art.” The elaborate fabrics were collected during their travels.

She has found other interests now that macular degeneration, brought on by diabetes, has impeded her eyesight. She also has been bedridden for four years, unable to transfer to a chair, her daughter said, because her legs are weak and she has a tendency to faint.

However, she accepts her limitations and continues to enjoy her life. She loves history and trivia and watches Huell Howser’s “California’s Gold” and “Jeopardy!” every night.

Howser’s slow Tennessee drawl makes it easy for her to follow what he’s saying, her daughter said.

She exercises twice a day and eats healthy meals. She has fruit with her breakfast and salads with her lunch and dinner — and always drinks green tea.

Her daughter reads to her her favorite books, such as “The Winning of Barbara Worth” by Harold Bell Wright and “The Holy Man” by Susan Trott.

Throughout the day, she listens to classical music, and her favorite composers are Mozart and Beethoven.

Before breakfast and dinner, she listens to a CD of gospel songs sung by Elvis.

She admits she didn’t care for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll when he became popular in the 1950s.

“I didn’t like his wiggles,” she said. “I thought they were sensual. But I grew to like him when I heard his religious songs years later.”

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JOYCE RUDOLPH can be reached at rudolphjoyce10@gmail.com.