Curiosity keeps centenarian young

MOSES LAKE — It could be that the secret to living a long time is just not to get old.

“I golfed until I was 95,” said Betty Davis, who celebrated her 100th birthday Jan. 2 at Monroe House. “I found out what I like to do, and at 75 I took golfing lessons and I never looked back … I would hop on a bicycle and ride if they would let me.”

“She was still bowling well into her 80s,” said Betty’s son, Jim Davis. “She was still riding her bicycle until her doctor told her not to after she broke her arm, and (she was) about 80 then.” 

Starting out 

Betty was born Betty Spellman, the sixth of seven children, in Isabel, South Dakota, where, she said, it was so flat you could see the lights of the next town. Her parents had homesteaded outside of town, but when Betty was three years of age the Dust Bowl drove them from their farm and they moved to town. Betty’s father, a trained carpenter, had to take whatever jobs he could, which in the Depression weren’t exactly plentiful. 

“My dad had worked for the White Owl Oil Company, and he drove a truck home one day. That was it,” she said. “They closed the company, and he drove his truck home, I don't know why, and they came and got the truck. That was the end of the White Owl Company.” 

Like many families at that time, the Spellmans headed west in 1936, when Betty was 11. Betty’s parents had friends who had settled in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and they stopped off there briefly before settling in Coeur d’Alene. North Idaho was a far cry from the endless plains of South Dakota, she said, which she learned when she started seventh grade. 

“I remember seeing the first snowfall,” she said. “The classroom was one of those that's a basement, but the windows were there, and you could see out the windows. And I was mesmerized by all the snow that was coming straight down. I'd never seen snow fall straight. In South Dakota, it was (blown) this way or this way or this way, but it never fell straight. And I was just mesmerized.” 

Betty’s father worked for a couple of years for the Works Progress Administration, one of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, and then, when Betty was 14, he passed away, leaving Betty’s mom to raise her and her sister. 

“My mother had Aid to Dependent Children,” Betty said. “She had us girls, and I think it probably amounted to about 14 cents a day. You might have had enough to buy a tablet for school.” 

War and love 

One day when Betty was 16, she was out walking with some friends when it began to rain, she said. A group of boys from Spokane was driving past and drove the girls three or four blocks to Betty’s house. The boys came back the next week and took the group of young ladies to Natatorium Park in Spokane.

“I was sitting in the back, and I saw this guy, he was the driver,” Betty said. “And I said to my friend before we left, ‘That’s the guy I’m going to marry.’” 

The young man’s name was Ted Davis, and his father owned an excavation company in Spokane, Betty said. Any plans for marriage had to be put on hold, however, when America entered World War II and everybody’s life was upended. Ted went into the army while Betty graduated high school and entered the working world. 

She worked at Van’s Creamery for a while, she said, but felt she should be doing something for the war effort. So she went to work for the Office of Price Administration, the agency in charge of rationing. 

“I gave people permission to buy their tires and gas,” Betty said. “Then I went to work for the naval supply people. I loved that job … It was very secretive, no matter what you did. My fingerprints are in Washington, D.C.” 

That job ended after the war, Betty said, by which time she and Ted were married. He’d learned a machinist’s trade in the army, she said, and found an open position at Grand Coulee Dam. So Ted and Betty packed up and moved west. 

“I didn’t want to live there,” Betty said. “I thought, Coulee Dam? That was like moving to Isabel, South Dakota. We moved there in 1958 and about three days later, I had made up my mind that I would live here forever.”

Staying curious 

And until last year, she did. Betty worked for the school district for 25 years as the secretary at Wright Elementary School. She and Ted purchased a house in Coulee Dam and raised four children there. 

“It was (like) ‘Leave it to Beaver,’” Jim said. “We’d leave in the morning and come home at night, the screen door slammed, just regular small-town stuff. They were really involved with everything we did: PTA, bowling league, Cub Scouts, all that stuff.” 

Betty retired in 1995, and Ted passed away in 1999. Betty, never one to remain idle, kept finding new enthusiasms to pursue. 

“She started new hobbies when she was in her 80s and early 90s,” Jim said. “She’d (say) ‘I think I’ll take this up’ and ‘I’m going to start doing this.’ I think that’s what’s kept her going, a natural curiosity.” 

A bad fall sent her to the hospital last year, Betty said, and her children brought her and her furniture to Monroe House, where she has a window that looks out over the playfield at Garden Heights Elementary School. 

“Ten of my grandchildren have gone to school there, and my daughter-in-law taught there,” she said. “I can look out and watch the kids at recess … At night they play soccer on that field, and I watch the soccer games. I just really feel that this is my home.” 

“She has a relationship with her (grandchildren and great-grandchildren),” Jim said. “They connect on Facebook; they email back and forth. A lot of people her age and a lot younger, they withdraw from all of that, because it's just too complicated. I'm telling you, it's pretty cool.” 

Betty’s birthday qualified her to join an exclusive club at Monroe House, she said; there are two other centenarians living there as well. As long as she can keep finding things out, she said, she’ll be fine. 

“I’m curious,” she said. “I look out (the window) and I want to know what that tree is, and I want to know what those birds are. I have to stick around and find out what’s happening.”