Easter in Montana, Post 1: Juanita's 100th

For the Easter long weekend, we drove to Montana for Ben's great aunt Juanita's 100th birthday party! We finished work at lunchtime on Thursday and drove as far as Leavenworth, WA (330 kms) that afternoon.

Leavenworth is a Bavarian-themed town in eastern Washington. We'd visited it once 3 years ago. This time we stayed at a nice motel called the Linderhof Inn, and spent a while wandering through the town, looking in shop windows and enjoying hot chocolate and cheese fondue at Pavz Creperie.

Downtown Leavenworth

Pavz Creperie

On Friday morning, we had breakfast at our motel and then caught the twice-daily alphorn serenade on the balcony of the motel next door! It had been nearly 6 years since we last heard one of these (when we were in Austria for Matt and Kat's wedding), so it brought back fond memories of that.

Then we hit the road and drove the rest of the way (780 kms) to Helena, MT. It was snowing as we went over the last mountain pass, making the road ahead look like this...

We arrived at Dixie's place (Juanita lives with her) around 6pm, just in time to have a Mexican dinner with a large collection of relatives. There were so many of them that there were some of Ben's second cousins that we didn't even meet during the course of the weekend! However, it was great to catch up with the ones we already knew - Juanita, Dixie, Ken and Liesl, John and Susy, Lindi and her kids Emrick and Hannah, Connie, Merle, etc.

(A quick explanation of the family tree: Juanita's daughter is Dixie, and Dixie's daughters are Liesl, Susy and Lindi, who are Ben's second cousins. Ben's paternal grandfather, Jack, was Juanita's brother.)

After we ate dinner and heard various relatives and friends share their favourite memories of Juanita, we headed to our accommodation for the night: the home of Keith and Myrtle, whom we'd never met before. John and Susy had organised it and were staying there too. We sat up talking for a while before retiring in anticipation of the big birthday party at 1pm the next day.

On Saturday morning we met some of the relatives at Hub Coffee in downtown Helena, and then wandered the streets for a couple of hours.

Liesl and me

Hannah, Liesl, me, Connie

Liesl and Ken

Lindi, Hannah and Emrick

Me and Liesl

Sensible...

...and silly!

Around noon we headed to the party venue - a nice local retirement home - to help set up. Then, it was party time!

Over the next 3 hours, many relatives and friends came by to share in the celebrations and wish Juanita a happy 100th birthday. We think there were probably 200+ people there! Great aunt Juanita sat in a comfy chair over against the wall, and nearly everyone spent some time sitting with her and talking to her. Ben had our camera set up on the tripod and operated it by remote control to take photos of people visiting with Juanita, so we didn't get many other photos at the party.

We also enjoyed some singing by a local a cappella group, a song from two of Juanita's great-granddaughters, and of course some birthday cake!

Timeline of a 100 year life

Juanita with her three children - Merle, Dixie and Tim

Juanita and Merle

Juanita and Liesl

Juanita and Connie

Having a chuckle

Girl talk

Dixie

After the party, a professional photographer took various configurations of family photos in the entrance lobby. Again Juanita sat in a comfy chair and the groups changed around her.

It was approaching dinner time for the retirement home residents, so a small crowd gathered to watch the proceedings with the attentiveness usually reserved for riveting live theatre! As Juanita doesn't live at the home, no one recognised her, so we overheard many curious discussions about what could possibly be going on (we did fill them in after a while!).  One of the nurses told me they have four residents over 100!

Next on the itinerary was an Italian dinner in a local church function room. It happened to be Dixie's 60th birthday that day (Juanita's actual birthday had been 2 days earlier), so there was a surprise lavender cake for her. The dinner provided us a slightly quieter time to chat with relatives, so it was a lovely end to the day.

As we left to head back to Keith and Myrtle's, Juanita was still going strong. I was very impressed: she was the centre of attention, either talking or smiling nearly all day (and she's a little hard of hearing, which can't have helped)... but I called it a night before she did!!

Liesl

Dixie

To be continued...