Celebrating a Century

MOSES LAKE — Edna Watkins and Ann Klobucher remember things like the Great Depression - Watkins was nine years of age, and Klobucher eight, at the time of the 1929 Wall Street crash that started it all. They were 21 and 20, respectively, when the attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the U.S. into World War 11. Watkins celebrated her 102nd birthday March 3, and Klobucher her 101st birthday March 7. And for her birthday, Watkins got a motorcycle ride.

Both now live at the Monroe House assisted living facility in Moses Lake.

Watkins is a Warden girl. Her grandparents homesteaded the area before World War I, and she graduated from Warden High School.

Like a lot of other girls her age Watkins went to work packing apples during harvest, going north to Dryden and Wenatchee to work in the sheds. But she is best known as a cook, having gained experience cooking for her family and for the crews that came through to harvest the wheat on the family’s farm.

She was cooking during wheat harvest at a farm near Lind when she met the owner’s nephew. She married Roy Watkins in 1942; they had two children. Roy died in 2010.

For her 102nd birthday the staff at Monroe House arranged her first motorcycle ride.

Klobucher was born in Spokane, but she grew up in Forks, where her parents Boyd and Frances Schlafer owned and operated a telephone company. She attended Washington State University, where she met her husband Victor Klobucher.

She put her degree to use in Tacoma, where she worked as a social worker, before moving to California. She married Victor Klobucher in 1945 and they had two sons and two daughters.

The Klobuchers moved to Moses Lake in 1953, where Victor opened a medical practice. Victor died in 2014.