Kathleen Scholz of Dusty celebrates100th birthday

At age 100, Kathleen Scholzs’ arthritic hands can still act out the historic tasks of using a washboard and pulling up a bucket of water from a well.

Scholz celebrated her 100th birthday Nov. 17, and while time has swept away much of the culture she knew, Scholzs’ youthful days as a farmer’s wife on the Palouse are still bright in her mind.

At her party, she had the delight of seeing relatives and friends she had not seen in years.

“I didn’t have so many parties in my name before. Guess you have to be an old lady to get one,” Scholz said, adding she got to see a relative she had not seen in 50 years.

Born in Del Rio, near the Grand Coulee Dam, in 1909, Kathleen Ford grew up on a farm. She can still recall Native Americans riding by their homestead house on horseback.

She graduated from Wilbur High School in 1928.

She can recall her first encounter with an automobile. Her uncle came down the hill driving a vehicle (she doesn’t remember the make). She and her siblings hopped on the running board for a ride back up the hill.

When they decided to get off, they didn’t know the vehicle could brake, so they all just leaped off the car.

“He never said how to get off, so I just jumped off,” she said. She fell under the car which ran over her left shoulder.

Scholz moved to Cheney to go to attend Cheney Normal after high school in 1928. Even though her father told her he didn’t want her to go to college, she got a job at a bakery to pay for school.

She received her teaching certificate after two years and then met her future husband, Walter Scholz, at a dinner.

Walter was deaf in one ear and she remembers going out of her way to sit on his good ear side.

“He was real touched,” she said. They were married in 1933 and were together for 51 years.

“In all our years of marriage, we never had one serious quarrel or disagreement,” she said.

They raised wheat near Dusty. Kathleen has now lived in the farm house for 76 years.

They had two children, Kathy S. Atwood and Claudia Ebling, born in 1946 and 1936, respectively. Kathy lives in Los Angeles now and her son, Kevin Atwood, lives with Kathleen as her caretaker at the house. Claudia lives in Seattle.

Walter died in 1984 of leukemia.

Scholz’s mind can still freshly recall details and she is articulate. She still remembers coming home after school every day to wash clothes.

“That was in the days of the washboard,” she said, gently moving her hands in the motion of washing clothes. She still remembers drawing water up from their well, pulling one hand up over the hand.

She still remembers the excitement she felt on finding out electricity would soon be strung out to Dusty.

“, I’m going down to Dusty for something [that uses] electricity,” she said.

She remembers going into the drugstore with her husband and feasting her eyes on all the new electric-run equipment.

“We were in the drug store and there was a beautiful electrical stove,” she said, adding it was their first electric appliance purchase.

Today’s technology has not won any big applause from her. She disapproves of the Internet, pointing out that it can bring nasty things into a home, willy nilly.

“Some of those things [cell phones, Internet, Facebook] should not have been set loose,” she said. “Words can do a lot.”

She also added that parents should be more wise in what they let their children witness on the computer and the television.

As far as advice for making it to her age, Scholz said, “For one thing, it’s hard work. You always do your share.”

Among other traits, she mentioned that honesty too is important. And lastly…

“You get married once. You better make sure about the girl you’re going to marry. Be sure you know her relatives well,” she said.