Six ladies of Langenburg share wisdom in 100-year club

An exclusive club of six ladies in the small town of Langenburg can boast more than 610 years of collective wisdom between its members.

The only qualification to join the Wise Women Wisdom Club is to reach your 100th birthday.

“I sometimes think it’s amazing to get that old,” said Alma Miller, the oldest of the group who will turn 108 on June 18.

In quarantine together at the Langenburg Centennial Special Care Home, the six ladies are still able to keep each other company, sharing stories and wisdom over tea, bingo or music.

Miller was born and raised on a farm three miles outside Langenburg.

“With my sisters and brothers, we always had a lot of fun jumping on the haystacks,” Miller recalled.

Over more than 100 years, there have been many ups and downs in her life, but the key to surviving tough times was to live off the land as a farmer or scrimp and save what you could if you lived in town.

In the 1930s, Miller moved to Regina for school. She and a friend did light housekeeping to split the rent of $16 a month and the rest of their money went to buy porridge, which was all they could afford to eat.

At 101, Jean Cowan has also lived her whole life in Langenburg, which now has a population of just over 1,000 people. She’s to celebrate her 102nd birthday in September.

“We lived on the farm and we worked hard,” Cowan said through the window of her room. “We were a happy family because our parents were happy so then the kids were happy.

“Imagine me pitching bales,” she said with a smile, explaining if you did it just right your body got used to it and the work was easy.

“I liked school but I was glad to quit school. I thought I had learned enough,” Cowan said, explaining she was about 12 years old at the time. “All those days seem funny to me. There’s things that make you laugh.”

Looking back through decades of change, the Great Depression, a world war and now a global pandemic, these ladies of Langenburg agree life is never guaranteed to be rosy all the time. But the good times are always what stand out the most.

“When everything is kind of going wrong, the next day think, ‘Well, it will be better tomorrow,’ ” Cowan said when asked to share some words of wisdom.

At 101, Vera Betke said there isn’t any secret to a long life, except perhaps to not feel your age.

“I don’t feel any different. I feel like I’m 10,” Betke said.

Elsie Wolfram just celebrated her 102nd birthday on May 21, and said it’s “wonderful to have such good friends.”

For her, the key to a long life was to keep as busy as possible, which she always was as she helped run the local grocery store while raising her kids. Her best piece of advice is to be kind to everyone.

Ruth Busch is also happy to be part of the club for company. Its members all say it’s good to grow old because you have more time to relax after a long life of work.

With her 102nd birthday coming up on June 26, Zela Klopstock can still play piano by ear. She said she didn’t learn music; it just came to her, but she did study to learn more about it.

She recalls a time when people would question why she went to college, but she wanted an education.

“A lot has happened in a life this old, this many years, and it has all been fun, wonderful with wonderful times,” Klopstock said. “One hundred years and all of them great.”

Unlike her five friends, Klopstock was born and raised in Arkansas and still has a hint of a southern accent. She followed her daughter “out west” to Saskatchewan in order to be close to her grandchildren as they were growing up.

“I’ve lived a few different places by now and it has all been fun. It’s so much in the way you take it and what you put into it,” Klopstock said. “People are people everywhere.”

Klopstock’s main motto is that life is what you put into it and what you make it. She considers raising her children and watching them grow into successful people with families of their own to be her greatest achievement.