A Temperate Toast for a 112-Year-Old : Birthday: Longtime crusader against alcohol stays true to her beliefs and passes up champagne at party.

Hold the champagne.

Katherine Jones wasn’t of a mind to hoist a toast Monday--even if she was celebrating her 112th birthday.

“I could take a sip or two,” Jones said. “But then, I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”

The woman who has spent nearly a century fighting the evils of drink wasn’t about to be tempted, even while celebrating her birthday with a cake from her friends and a commendation from Mayor Tom Bradley.

Generations of Los Angeles residents remember Jones as a tireless crusader for temperance in the city’s earlier, more freewheeling days. She would stand outside tavern doors to lecture patrons as they walked in. She would visit local jails to counsel prisoners as they waited to get out.

For 20 years, she led the local chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. For 50 years, she taught Sunday school classes to children and adults alike.

She says she took her cue from her childhood hero, Abraham Lincoln.

“He was an old-fashioned teacher who was not afraid to stand up in the crowd and exhort people to do good,” Jones told well-wishers at the Sunnyview Convalescent Hospital, where she lives. “I felt I couldn’t do better than to honor the same . . . high standards.”

Jones was born Aug. 30, 1879, in Paola, Kan. She homesteaded in Colorado before settling in Los Angeles about 1920. Although she had trained to be a nurse, she became a teacher instead.

“That was the most fun,” Jones said. “While the students were learning, I was learning, myself. I wanted to be an example to young children.”

She has been an example to adults, too, according to the Rev. Thomas Kilgore Jr., retired pastor of the Second Baptist Church. “She taught adult Sunday school until she was 99,” he said.

Experts on aging say no one keeps track of how many people 100 and older live in Los Angeles. But those who reach that plateau inevitably have a strong sense of spirituality, according to Raphael Cordero, president of the Burbank-based American Centenarian Committee.

“I’ve haven’t found a centenarian yet who’s an atheist,” Cordero said.

Wendy Free, a spokeswoman for the USC Gerontology Center, said researchers are uncertain why some people live longer than others. “Being active definitely plays a part of it,” and abstinence from alcohol is no guarantee, she said.

Olga B. Jackson, president of the local WCTU, said Jones stationed herself in front of beer bars and cocktail lounges in hopes of dissuading patrons from going inside. “She’d tell them that your body is a temple,” she recalled.

Jackson cringed when a visitor jokingly asked Jones if she planned to celebrate with a drink after the cake was gone.

Jones’ response drew a chuckle from her niece, Margaret Boykin of Los Angeles.

“She’s a nice lady and she has a good sense of humor,” Boykin said.

“ That’s why she’s lived so long.”