100th Celebration

Not days, years... my grandma will turn 100 on Monday!  So, guess who's going to see her?  Yep, here's to another 350+ mile trip!  Hubs can't go, so it's just us girls.  Since her birthday is on Monday, we are staying until Tuesday.

It's hard to believe my grandma has lived for an entire century!  She is an amazing woman who was nearly three months old when the Titanic sank.

World War I began just months after she turned two and ended when she was six.

The very first radio broadcast aired when she was eight.

When she was 15, Charles Lindbergh made the first trans-Atlantic flight.

At the age of 16, she married my grandpa.

When she was 17, The Saint Valentine Day massacre went down in Chicago, and later that same year, the Great Depression began.  She also gave birth to the first of 12 children, a daughter.

The Empire State building opened when she was 19.  This year marked the birth of her second child, another daughter.

Amelia Erheart flew across the Atlantic Ocean when she was 20.

Just two days after her 22nd birthday, she had her third child, another girl.  That same year, John Dillinger was killed and the Dust Bowl began, also known as the "Dirty Thirties" which was a period when severe dust storms caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prarie lands from 1930 to 1936 (to 1940 in some areas).

At 23, she had her fourth child, yet another girl!

The Social Security Act was established when she was 23 and the Hindenburg Disaster occorred when she was 25.  That same year, she had her fifth child - finally a boy!
When she was 27, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.

Shortly after turning 28, she gave birth to another boy, her sixth child.

Pearl Harbor was attacked when she was 29 and the U.S. entered World War II.

Her seventh child, a girl, was born when she was 30.

Nearly three years later, when she was 32, General Dwight D. Eisenhower called a crusade on the beaches in Normandy on what we know as D-Day, to defeat Hitler.  The Battle of the Bulge occurred that same year and she had her eighth child, a boy.

When she was 33, The U.S. took Okinawa, the U.S. joined the United Nations, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki and Germany & Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

The following year, when she was 34, the Cold War began between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

At 35, she had another son, my dad, her ninth child.

The Nuremberg Trials began when she was 36 and the Berlin Blockade began.

NATO was formed when she was 37, which was the same year that Germany divided into East and West.

When she was 38, Joseph McCarthy started Communist witch hunts and the Korean War began.  That same year, she gave birth to her tenth child, the last boy she would have.

At 40, she had a baby girl, her eleventh child.  And at 43, she gave birth to her last child, another daughter.

When she was 45, in 1957 the Russians launch Sputnik and NASA was formed the following year.

The Cuban Revolution began when she was 47.

In 1960, when she was 48, Hawaii became the 50th state.

When she was 49, the Vietnam War began and OPEC was formed.

The Cuban Missle Crisis occurred when she was 50.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated when she was 51 and Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I have a dream" speech during the March on Washington.

When she was 57, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

When she was 60, the Watergate Burglary occurred.

The U.S. pulled out of Vietnam when she was 61, ending the war.  This same year, Watergate broke and Skylab launched the first space station.

When she was 62, President Nixon resigned over Watergate.

There was an assassination attempt on President Ronald Regan's life when she was 69.

At the age of 73, her husband met Jesus in Heaven.

The Space Shuttle Challenger accident happened when she was 74.

When she was 78, the Hubble Space Telescope was place in orbit.  Iraq invaded Kuwait which led to the Gulf War the following year, when she was 79.

Hurricane Andrew plowed through Florida and Louisiana when she was 80, causing great devastation.

Terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred in 2001 when she was 89.

At 92, she lost a daughter to cancer.

Hurricane Katrina devasted the Gulf Coast when she was 93.

In her lifetime, she has lived under the presidency of 18 men, was united in one marriage, and birthed 12 children, 11 of which were residentially born.  She has over 30 grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren.  There's so much more I could include in this timeline to honor the 100 years of her life.  But isn't it amazing to see these events that have taken place during her life?   As I said, she is amazing!  And I love her and wish her a happy, happy 100th birthday!