This is my first waymark of a centenarian whose life spanned three centuries. Findagrave.com contains an obit for Pearl that reads:
Pearl Oldfield was born March 23, 1899, to Amos Lundy and Carrie Anderson Lundy. She was born on the Lundy Ranch in Bly, OR, homesteaded by her grandparent.
Her first mode of transportation was horse or horse and wagon. She used to tell stories of traveling to Ashland by horse and wagon and taking days to get there.
In her early teens she moved to Klamath Falls with her mother. She is listed in the Klamath County High School Student Roster as being a freshman in 1917.
She told stories of getting the first hoopy (car) and how it wasn't much faster nor much more comfortable than the horses, and of her mother teaching her to crochet and embroider and how they made ends meet by sewing and "fancying up the clothes" for the ladies of the red light district of Spring Street.
She married three times. The first two ending in divorce but giving her her children, Ruby and Virginia Palmer and Dora Boye. She worked as a live-in-housekeeper for Judge Vandenburg and the Reid family. During World War II she worked in the bx factory. In 1946, she married L.P. (Barney) Oldfield and life settled down. They enjoyed hunting, fishing, and family. She supplemented income by embroidering dish towels and pillow cases and crocheting edging on bath and kitchen towels and selling them. They became a much sought after item. She also made wonderful hot rolls and a mayonnaise cake that her grandson nicknamed "Buckin' Cake" because it was always in the picnic lunch she packed for first day of Buck hunting season.
After her husband passed away in 1967 she took a trip to Hawaii and took care of her mother until she passed. She belonged to Shasta View Grange, Neighbors of Woodcraft, Klamath Basin Senior Citizen Council and for awhile was active in TOPS.
When she was in her mid-eighties she helped her daughter clear the land to set up her home in Plum Valley.
Her pride was living alone and taking care of herself which she did until she was 98. She was also proud of her family which had grown to 5 generations. We would all get together for her birthday and she would say, "Would you just look at what I started."
She lived in her house in Mills Addition until November of 2003 when she went to stay at Senior Moments with Ann and Juan.
She put one century to bed, lived through an entire century, enduring two World Wars, the Depression, the death of two of her children, brother, parents nd a husband and saw a century begin.
The only thing she ever complained about was "her darned old eyes and ears had worn out." She was one tough lady!