Ten decades: Centenarian Eleanor Sorter recalls life and times

MOSES LAKE — Eleanor Sorter is a tough chick. She had to be when her husband Norman passed away from heart problems. 

Norman Sorter was working on a project — a big project — when he died.

“We were building a commercial building. We didn’t have it finished and we didn’t have insurance on it,” Sorter said. “That meant I had to get busy and get the building finished. Which I did.”

She learned construction techniques, got it finished and rented it out, and she still owns it.

Sorter celebrates her 100th birthday next week. 

“I can’t believe I’m going to be 100,” she said.

Sorter’s family lived in Ridgefield, near Vancouver, in some challenging times. 

“We lived on a farm. It was during the Depression; we lost the farm and moved to Woodland,” she said. "That’s where I was raised and went to school.” 

She met Norm Sorter in the early days of World War II, she said, while she was on a date with somebody else. 

“I was going with somebody else at the time, and we were going to go play tennis. And (Norman) came over and I left the tennis court with him, and five weeks later we were married,” she said.

They had friends in Moses Lake, which didn’t have sidewalks but did have lots of sagebrush, Sorter said. The weather, however, was irresistible.

“It was always so nice and sunny that we decided to move over here,” she said.

At the time the family lived in Grays Harbor County, and they didn’t like the clouds. 

“I hated living at the beach,” she said. “People were unfriendly and I just didn’t like it.”

People who lived close to the beach made some extra money digging clams back in the day, and Sorter said she thought she’d try it.

“I bought a shovel and clam digger, and out I went. And I wasn’t very good at digging clams,” she said. “I minced them before I ever got them in the bucket.”

Her husband worked for the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office, and he wasn’t liking the job all that much, so they decided to move east, she said.

“When we got home from one visit over here, we just said, ‘Let’s sell our house and move to Moses Lake,” she said.

Moses Lake was just beginning to grow, and Norman Sorter put his money into a business venture, a truck he used to haul lumber.

“We traded it for five lots (of land) on the lake, and we built our first home there,” she said. “We built two other (houses) for sale.”

Norman Sorter started a business, bought and sold property, including a couple of houses his wife would rather have kept. She didn’t want to sell the house on Lakeside Drive, she said, but her husband was determined. Even crying while the real estate agent was talking with her husband didn’t work.

“I heard the real estate guy say, “Gosh, I didn’t mean to make her cry.’ So I cried a little bit louder. Never did help,” she said.

Norman Sorter built a new house, which she didn’t like, she said, and then a couple of others. None of them were really to her taste, and she didn’t care when he decided to sell, especially the big colonial house.

“It looked like the people who lived there should have lots of money,” she said. “Of course, we didn’t have any money.”

So she went looking for her house. She found one and didn’t listen to her husband’s objections.

“When we left I said to the man that owned it, ‘I’m going to buy this house, even if my husband tells me no.’ I wrote out a check for $500 and I had $40 in the bank,” Sorter said. 

That was on a Friday. On Monday morning, she asked her husband to go to the bank to arrange for a home loan.

“He said, ‘You bought the house, you go to the bank.’ So I did,” she said.

Norman Sorter was destined not to live in the house. He died about three days before they were to move in. That was in 1977.

After that, she ran the businesses with the help of family and moved into the house. She liked to dance and found a dancing partner. She lived in her house on Olive Street until moving to Monroe House about a year ago. 

As for the secret to living a long life, she said she got that question from the guy renewing her driver’s license. 

“You know what I told him? ‘Sex, booze and cigarettes.’ And he said, ‘You just step right over here, we’ll take your picture and you can go home,'” she said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.

“I bought a shovel and clam digger, and out I went. And I wasn’t very good at digging clams. I minced them before I ever got them in the bucket.” 
- Eleanor Sorter, Moses Lake