Centenarian Makes No Big Deal of Her Charmed Life, but Others Do

Oh sure, they’ve tried to put her down before.

Like the time, 21 years ago, when two jet bombers crashed and exploded in a fireball that engulfed her Leisure World home, killing her husband and four other people.

But Gladys Lauderbach, then a mere lass of 79, was rescued.

Before that there was the bout with cancer, when her doctors, and even her family, believed death would soon claim her.

Gladys Lauderbach laughs about that now.

Then, just this last New Year’s Day, a fierce attack of pneumonia sent her to the hospital.

“We thought that this time, it was it,” said daughter Ruth Sanders, 60, of Buena Park. “But she was out in five days.”

Gladys Lauderbach, who turned 100 on Sunday, gives a big toothy grin when she hears that one.

“I’ve just lived a common and natural life,” she said. “I didn’t make a big deal of it.”

But all four of Lauderbach’s children, her 11 grandchildren and her 16 great-grandchildren--not to mention maybe about 100 of her closest and dearest friends--were set to make a very big deal of it for her.

They celebrated Sunday with a reception at Santa Ana’s First Presbyterian Church, then 39 family members gathered at Sanders’ home for dinner.

It was to be the first time since 1967--when the jet crash over Laguna Hills claimed the life of Lauderbach’s husband, Leon, and sent her to the hospital for seven weeks--that the entire family was together.

“That makes life worthwhile,” Lauderbach said, “to have your closest friends and family here with you.”

Lauderbach isn’t much for reflecting too hard on the meaning of life, on who or what has kept her around for so long.

“I don’t know,” she said with a clear, strong voice. “I’d have to go in the bedroom by myself and maybe think about it for 24 hours. No, I haven’t even thought about it.”

But daughter Marjorie Ranney, 73, who lives in Calcutta, India, most of the year, has thought about it a lot.

“She always recognizes what is good in people,” Ranney said.

“I hadn’t realized that before,” Lauderbach chimed in, “But it’s true.”

Lauderbach, born and married on her family’s farm in Howell, Mich., these days is confined to a wheelchair because of hip problems. Her only complaints, however, are of an occasional upset stomach.

“I’ve had a wonderful, interesting life,” she told a visitor to her Garden Grove townhouse. “I’m just amazed that you’re taking all this down.”

Lauderbach says that one of her best memories goes back to 1901, when she graduated with an education degree from Alma College in Alma, Mich.

“I felt like I was right up there with the others,” she said. “I was so proud of myself.”

Lauderbach went on to a job as a Latin teacher and marriage.

“After college, I married Burt,” she said. “No, mother, you didn’t marry Burt, you married Dad,” said her daughters almost in unison.

“Oh, yeah,” Lauderbach said, breaking into a belly laugh that leaves her listeners wondering just who the joke was on.

Although daughter Sanders said her mother told her she knew she would live to be 100, Lauderbach conceded that she “just said that for fun.”

“I just like to brag about it, and I did think I would live to be a good old age, because I was hardly sick.”

The cancer, pneumonia and the third-degree burns suffered in the plane crash must not count, said her daughters.

“Life was awfully interesting,” Lauderbach mused. But she is reminded that for her, at least, it isn’t over yet.

“Oh, it isn’t?” she asked with feigned innocence. “I thought those would make good last words.”

Regular People columnist Herbert J. Vida is on vacation.