Irene Simpson celebrates 100th birthday

Simpson is shown at her 100th birthday celebration at Bishop's Place Saturday. Between 60-70 people attended the celebration in her honor.

Life on the Palouse was different 100 years ago, and Irene Simpson can attest to that.

A native of Johnson, Simpson celebrated her 100th birthday on Nov. 13 and marked it the next day with a party at Bishop's Place in Pullman where she lives. About 60-70 people attended the celebration.

“That's my favorite birthday,” Simpson said, referring to her 100th falling on Friday the 13th.

The third-born of 10 children to Jacob and Verniece Steiner, Simpson was born in the house her family lived. It was built the same year as her birth.

“It has been added onto as needed,” she said of the family house which she now owns. “As the family grew, so did the house.”

Simpson has spent her entire life in Colton, Johnson and Pullman.

“I did not get far away from home,” she said with a smile. “I was afraid I would get lost!”

She spoke of Johnson with fondness. “Everybody in Johnson knew everybody else. It was a close-knit community,” she said. “The school was a pretty good size at that time. At one time they had the best school in the county.”

Simpson said she spent much of her time as a child outdoors, something she wants to encourage others to do today.

“When we were kids, in the evening the kids would all get out on the streets and play ball or something,” she said. “We ran around barefoot in the summer time. The streets and alleys were all just grass. You could run from one end of the town to another in no time.”

Simpson attended school in Johnson, and was active in 4H club events on the Washington State College campus. She graduated from Johnson High School in 1931, the same year her youngest sibling, Joan, was born.

“When I graduated from high school, my mother could not go to my graduation because she had a baby,” she said.

After her graduation, she worked for families in the Johnson area to help with cooking, cleaning and aspects of farm life. Then, in 1940, she married Glenn Simpson. Together, they had four children, Judy, Linda, Jim and Gary. All of the children were born in Colfax, two of them at the St. Ignatius Hospital.

She and Glenn operated a wheat and dairy farm in the Colton-Bald Butte area. Simpson said she milked 20 to 30 cows per day, twice a day.

“It was not a very big farm,” Simpson said. “We had to do something besides the wheat.”

They operated the farm until Glenn's accidental death in 1957. In 1960, she went to work for Washington State University, where she worked for the next 22 years as a lab assistant in the Dairy and Food Sciences Departments.

“By the time I left I learned as much as some of the students did,” she said. “I worked until I was 67.”

Upon her retirement, she spent much of her time volunteering with the Pullman Senior Center and Pullman Regional Hospital. At the hospital, she wrapped bandages, prepared surgical packets and did anything else that needed to be completed.

“I did all kinds of things there,” she said. “They always had something that needed to be done.”

Simpson volunteered at the hospital until she was 97, and she only stopped because she broke her collarbone. At one point, she was honored as “Volunteer of the Year” by the hospital auxiliary for her service.

Simpson's daughter-in-law, Julie Simpson, who is married to son Gary, said her mother-in-law has taught her family about commitment.

“She has taught her kids how to be very hardworking and dedicated,” said Julie. “She has always been work-driven. She likes to have a purpose in life and to really work hard.”

At her home in Johnson, she stayed active by gardening. She said she did not like gardening when she was a kid, but she grew to enjoy it.

“I did not like to work in it, but I liked to pick it,” she said.

About eight years ago she moved to Bishop Place in Pullman.

“At my house out at Johnson the weather got so bad at winter time that I spent most of my winter shoveling snow so I could go somewhere if I wanted to,” she said. “It took me almost all day to shovel my way out of the bad stormy winters.”

She still owns the family home in Johnson, and she occasionally stays there. The home is still used for family get-togethers, especially the family reunion every Fourth of July.

Simpson's family still continues to grow, as she now has seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. She is often visited by her family, and she spends some of her time swimming in the pool at Bishop's Place and playing bingo.

“I walk in the pool,” she said. “It is easier to walk in the pool for me. And I play bingo every chance I get.”

She said life today is easier in many ways than it was 100 years ago.

“We did not have running water or bathrooms when I was a kid,” she said.

Though Johnson “has shrunk a lot,” it is still the place she calls home, and she could probably tell most of the community's history.

She was happy to celebrate her 100th birthday with family and friends and said she never imagined reaching this milestone.

“No, I never thought I would,” she said. “I do not know if there is anybody in my family that got that old.”