99-Year-Old Woman’s Colorful Life Is a Patchwork of Love, Inspiration

The secret of life, James Taylor once crooned, is enjoying the passing of time. But Maude Nau, who is about to celebrate her 100th birthday, disagrees. The secret of life, she said, “is clean living. No drinking. No smoking. And I don’t do a lot of preaching.”

Born May 29, 1893, Nau, of Whittier, is “more inspiring than other 100-year-olds,” said Suzanne Skowron, community relations director for Chateau Whittier, the retirement community where Nau lives.

“Most people think of 100-year-olds in convalescent hospitals, blind and withering away, just existing physically. Most people will tell you, “Oh my gosh, I’d never want to live to be 100. Shoot me first.’ ”

Not Nau. “Once you meet her,” Skowron said, “You think, wow, 100 years old looks pretty darn good. She dresses to the nines, and is very meticulous and independent. Maude does not spend her days living in memories of a life gone by.”

Nau volunteers every week at a local center for the blind, where she teaches them to make dolls, clothes and tote bags. Her students use sewing machines labeled in Braille and guides to help them thread needles, sew buttons and hem skirts.

Nau also continues to sew and sells some of her work at Chateau Whittier and at antique shops.

Her one concession to old age is using a walker. “People tell me I don’t look 100,” she said. “More like 70.”

Her experiences, though, betray her longevity. Nau remembers women in long skirts, high collars and lace-up boots. She remembers streets crowded with horses, not cars. She remembers skies without airplanes.

She grew up in Winona, Minn., about 100 miles south of Minneapolis, the fourth of five children and daughter of the owner of a meat-packing company. When Nau was 9, her father was killed when a machine malfunctioned. Her mother, a seamstress, married a dairy farmer, and the family moved to the country. Nau quit school after eighth grade and went to work, she said.

“I drove a team of horses to the city and delivered milk,” she said. Nau later became an apprentice in a dressmaking shop and learned to sew. She started a seamstress business that took her to North Dakota, Wisconsin and back to Minnesota.

In 1916, she married a man who worked for the “Hoover suction sweeper company” and had a son and daughter, she said. Her son, an Air Force pilot, was killed in training in Florida during World War II. Shortly after that, in 1945, she moved with her husband and daughter to Pasadena to open a bed and breakfast.

Nau has spent most of her life in California as a homemaker, tending the house and keeping a garden, she said. Her husband died in 1984 in his 90s, and Nau moved to Chateau Whittier.

Would she want to live another 100 years? “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “The 100 years I’ve lived have been very successful and pleasant, but another 100 years may not be that way.” Nau paused. “I wouldn’t mind living a little longer, though.”

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Signal Hill resident Laila Gardezi, 7, won the Westec Award for Youth Heroism for saving her 18-month-old sister from drowning in the family spa Jan. 3. She saw the toddler floating in the water and ran and called her mother. Laila’s quick actions saved the little girl from brain damage, said Phillip Sontag, a spokesman for Westec. Westec, a private residential security company, has cited 40 California youths for bravery since 1989.

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Louis Wharton, a junior at Millikan High School in Long Beach, was the top gold medal winner at a recent weekend language immersion competition sponsored by the Foreign Language Teachers of Orange County. Louis was voted the best French speaker from 104 student participants.

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Eleven students from the Long Beach Unified School District were selected to play in the All-Southern California Honor Orchestra and the All-Southern California Honor Band. The all-star performing bands include Southern California’s most talented student instrumental musicians from public and private high schools. No other school district had as many student musicians named to the honor bands. Long Beach students in the honor orchestra include Regan Lambert, Nate Knight, Natalie Schottler, Agnes Yoshida, Celia Leyva, David Ickler, Carolyn Barbauta and Melanie Joo. Members of the honor band are David Quisalty, Christina Morse and Damien Schneyder.

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