Lydia Margare Simonson

Lydia M. Simonson 103, died December 22, 2014 in Federal Way, Washington. Lydia was born January 20, 1911 in Eureka, South Dakota and moved to South Kitsap in 1942.
Lydia earned a two-year teaching degree, then graduated from the University of Washington at age 52 with a four-year degree. She taught 3rd grade at East Port Orchard Elementary and Orchard Heights, retiring from teaching in 1975.
Lydia was a member of the Port Orchard Business and Professional Women and contributed her longevity to "living one day at a time " as well as being a "world traveler".

My First On Hundred Years, In Her Own Words, Lydia Simonson
I was born in a small town in South Dakota.
May First years were happy school years, as children we sat around the kitchen table doing our homework by the light of a kerosene lamp. Then electricity came into our home. What a wonderful change it was.
Another big event was Henry Ford's Model T. Our horizon's widened considerably. No more horses and buggies. It was a real challenge to drive the car in the summertime. In the summers the water boiled over in the radiators and the tires blew out. What a difference today as we drive our roads in air-conditioned cars. Ho longer does the wife have to ask her husband to stop and ask for directions. How there is a gadget in the care that tells you where to go and how to get there.
Then cam the airplane. Stunt flyers came to town. They would land in a pasture near town and all the townspeople flocked to watch the flyers do the loop-do-loop.
The airplanes brought a change in the mail delivery. In the early days everyone had to pickup their mail at the post office in town. Mail would come in on the trains. Every train had a mail car. In the winter time the train would get stuck in the snowdrift. Sometimes it would take three or more days to dig it out.
Another big change was RFD Act (Rural Free Delivery)-Mail was now being to all rural areas. Today computers and e-mail are about to make the post office obsolete.
Another major development was the telephone. A company came to our area stringing up some wires, connection them to a central office where a telephone operator would connect you to your party. Phones were called party lines. Each phone would have its own ring. You could listen in on any call. It was part of our entertainment. Direct dial and touch phones followed, then as now we have cell phones that will do everything but tie your shoe laces.
Soon radios came along. We would pull up our chairs around a crystal and listen to the news as it came through the air. Radio was then followed by television.
Women made much progress in this century. One major step was the right to vote. As I got out of grade school most girls went to high school but not many went on to college as there were few professions offered up to women. Nursing and teaching for the most part. After a hard struggle other professions opened up for women. IN 1919 when women were given the right to vote many more professions opened up for women, such as medicine, law practices, military and slowly church offices.
The Second World War also advanced their progress. Women took over the home front. They built the planes an well as flew them.
In the early twenty's there were only two women in our town that drove a car. No women drive anything even equipment.
The first travelers in my family were my great grandparents. They and their married son's and daughters' immigrated to America to take advantage of The Homestead Act. I will always be grateful to them. Little did I know, as I gazed in awe of the stunt flyer's doing the loop-do-loop that I would one day travel in a huge airplane to see all but one continent. (The only continent that I have not been to is the Antarctic). I would see many places and meet many people from all over the world.
I was always be glad to get back one to America.
The best country of all.