Sitting in her apartment this week at Commonwealth Living in Christiansburg, Bernadine Lester shows off a picture of a younger version of herself in the 1920s.
Marty Gordon
Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeated Republican Charles E. Hughes in 1916 for another term in the White House. It was also the year Americans watched as World War I continued across the pond in Europe. Later that year, Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park Service, and the Boy Scouts were granted a Congressional Charter. Among those monumental events, it was also the year, Bernadine Lester was born. This week, she celebrated her 103rd birthday.
The Christiansburg woman’s secret to longevity, as she puts it, is just being so darn stubborn to keep staying around. Her youngest of three children, Kathy Waller, called her mother “fiery, independent and, yes, stubborn at times.”
Wednesday, Bernadine sat in a chair at Commonwealth Assisted Living. Resting her leg from a fall she suffered earlier in the week, typically, the little white-haired lady is up and running not letting much slow her down with no grass growing under her feet.
She laughed that she has been known to do a Charleston or two when the nursing facility holds a special event downstairs in the conference room.
“I don’t know if I can do that right now, but I will try,” she said, twisting her leg while doing the interview.
She has lived at Commonwealth for the past 15 years, and enjoys the activities, staff and visitors that make up the facility.
Before calling it home, Bernadine had completed a life-long dream going on cruises with several friends to places like the Panama Canal, the Caribbean and even Alaska.
“I have done almost everything I have thought about doing except maybe riding in a hot air balloon. That would be nice,” she said, pointing to the fact she jumped on the back of a motorcycle a few years ago.
Bernadine has visited almost every state except Hawaii, mainly with a group of ladies that attend Christiansburg’s St. Paul Methodist Church. Her health has slowed her down just a bit, thus cutting into any chance of possibly completely the trek to Hawaii.
“I feel blessed to have lived this long,” she said.
Actor Gregory Peck, who was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, was born two days before Lester. Wednesday, she admitted he was her heart-throb. “Oh yes, why couldn’t I have been an actress too,” she said. “And also Dean Martin,” she said with a smile.
While the memories are getting harder to remember, Waller reminded her of stories from the past.
“Mom has told a few over the years,” Waller said.
Like others growing up in the early 1920s, life wasn’t easy. Bernadine’s mother, Nora, died from the flu epidemic when Bernadine was only two years old. For a time, she lived with her grandmother in Smyth County before moving back to Pulaski and in with her father, Albert Groseclose, who worked for the railroad. He would raise four daughters.
“It wasn’t easy for him to do that, raising four girls, but he managed,” she said. But she admits the family always had what they needed and never considered themselves as being “poor.”
Her father would have an adult drink before going to bed every night, and occasionally he would give each girl a sip of the alcohol in his glass. But she never really drank alcohol and never, never took a puff of a tobacco-product. No bad vices for this lady, maybe another reason for her long life.
In 1934, Bernadine married Ray Lester. They were married 62 years before his death and had three children, Carol, Ray Jr. (Eddie) and Kathy.
Ray Sr. would work at the arsenal and then later for Appalachian Power. Bernadine would work odd jobs throughout the years included Smithman’s, Carlton’s and Leggett’s clothing shops. Basically, she was a stay-at-home mom.
“We first met when we were both freshmen at Pulaski High School, but never really dated or anything until later at a junior high dance. He remembered what I was wearing and doing when we had first met when we were freshmen,” she said.
They slipped off when both turned 18 years old and got married, and then lived in a modest two-room apartment in Pulaski that cost $10 a month.
Birthday 2 _ Bernadine Lester blows out the candles of her birthday cake earlier this week as her daughter, Kathy Waller, looks on.
Lester’s Aunt Lizzie also lived to be 103, and like her, both like their potatoes, cabbage and other veggies.
“Maybe, that was their secret to their old age,” Waller said.
Lester has nine grandchildren and 13 great-grand-children. She’s hoping for that first great-great-grand child sometime in the future. And yes, she is already looking forward to another birthday. “I had so much fun this time around, I think I might hang around for another,” she said with a chuckle and a big smile that she has become known for.
“Except in photos, I can never seem to smile in one of those,” she concluded.
