A century of Vi

Vi Adams

1908 - Present

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake resident Vi Adams celebrated her birthday by seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Adams turns 100 Tuesday. She had a get-together at her home with people she knew on Saturday.

"Nothing special," Adams said of her birthday. "I just live from one day to the next. I'm a positive person."

Adams has lived in Moses Lake since 1957, moving from Coulee City because the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation took the pasture where she and husband Howard raised cattle.

Healthy-minded parents might want to have their children avoid this next sentence.

"People ask me what I eat," Adams said. "I don't eat vegetables, I don't eat fruit. I eat meat, potatoes, gravy and sweets. I eat a half a cup of sugar a day. I've never been sick, which is very unusual, you know? I have two very good doctors."

The doctors were expected to be in attendance at the get-together. Prior to the event, Adams wasn't sure how many people would be there.

"The list keeps growing," she said several weeks prior to the festivities. "I counted them yesterday, there was 110. I got up this morning, there's four more coming. People say, 'I want to go to that too, you know.' I haven't the slightest idea how many will be there."

Asked what the best change has been in the last 100 years, Adams marveled.

"So many changes all the time," she said. "So many things I was used to all those years, they've never heard of them now. They stopped making them or something. The bamboo rake? They don't make them anymore."

The worst change has been the loss of heritage, Adams said.

"That really concerns me," she said. "I wrote both sides of my family history about 15 years ago. I just sat down, I didn't have one single note."

Adams' hobbies and interests have changed throughout the years, she noted. A charter member of the Miss Moses Lake Festival committee, Adams remembered having a club for former Miss Moses Lakes.

"We had such a good time," she said.

Adams is also a longtime member of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for 65 years. She had a birthday celebration there when she was 92.

"And now there are only two of us left out of all of those women, it's really sad," she said. "They weren't nearly as old as I was. I don't know why I have such good health, I have no idea. Maybe it's the half-cup of sugar. I've been eating sugar all my life."

Born in Trinidad, Colo., Adams' grandfather and father worked for the railroad company, otherwise she would have been born in Oklahoma City, Okla.

"My grandparents came from North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma," she said. "So I'm a Southerner. My grandmother died when she was 83 and everybody said that was so old. But look at me."

Adams has one brother, whom she estimated is 87; one daughter, two grandsons and one granddaughter, one great-grandson and one great-granddaughter and one great-great granddaughter.

Husband Howard died 11 years ago. He and Adams started the first grade together. Had Howard lived, he would have been 100 years old this year, too, Adams added.

They were married in 1930.

Was it love at first sight in the first grade?

"Oh heavens no," Adams exclaimed. "I had a boyfriend all right, but not Howard. We started going together about when we were sophomores in high school."

Adams doesn't have big plans post-celebration.

"Just what I've been doing all these years," she chuckled. "I don't like to go. I like to stay home. When company comes, we go to the kitchen. That is the main room in the whole house, it's always been. Nobody's ever come and left unless they've had something to eat or drink. That's the southern part of me."

Adams recommends people believe in themselves and be positive.

"You have to be happy with yourself," she said. "The attitude you wake up with each morning will carry you through the day. So if you're grumpy, grumpy, grumpy all day … I believe in prayer and I'm a strong believer in angels."