Mary Lincoln celebrates her 106th birthday

Born more than a century ago in a homestead shack 12 miles north of Rudyard - before electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones and motorized vehicles became commonplace in rural America - Mary Lincoln turned 106 years old today.

To help their firstborn stay warm that winter, infant Mary's parents, Henry and Sarah Ritter, laid her in her box on the open oven door and slept with her between them at night, said Mary's son, Roger Lincoln of Gildford.

"A newborn? I wouldn't sleep at night for fear I'd roll over it," Roger said. "She survived quite well."

Mary, who lived in her own home until she was about 100 years old and no longer able to and then with Roger for three years after that, celebrated her 106th birthday Saturday with family and friends at Wheat Country Estates in Chester. She talked to and ate cake with relatives and friends including former students.

Her family had held a big celebration for her 105th birthday and planned a quieter affair for this year. But even without invitations and advertising 50 people showed up to mark the occasion, Roger said, including 89-year-old Donald Rudolph, whom Mary taught to read when he was in first grade.

Mary's parents, both of German heritage, taught Mary to speak German before English, and held her out of school until she was 8 so she could start school with the oldest of her three brothers.

In those years, though, the teacher determined what grade each student would be in, Roger said, so Mary graduated grade school in four years and went on to graduate high school at 16 in Havre, working for her room and board. Her parents held her out of school for a year to let her mature, he said, then they sent her to college in Naperville, Illinois.

"Of course, she'd never been on a train. I think Havre was the farthest she'd probably ever been from home, and that was quite a shock to her," Roger said. "But she endured it and got her degree in home (economics), teaching home ec. She came back home and, of course, there weren't jobs for home ec teachers so she taught country school."

She taught at two different schools north of Inverness during the Great Depression, Roger said, and because the school board had no money they paid her in warrants that she would register with the county, and when the county had money she would eventually get paid.

"Being the resourceful person she was, she had a pet goat that furnished her with a little milk and so forth," Roger said. "Mother would pin her warrants up on the wall, just take a straight pin and stick them on the wall. Well, one day the goat got into the teacherage and ate all her warrants."

In the end, the county re-issued the warrants and she got paid, but until then she was a little distraught about getting by, Roger said.

After three years of teaching, Mary married the neighbor boy Donald Lincoln in summer of 1936. Donald was only about six weeks older than Mary and grew up on a farm just three miles from Mary's family's homestead.

"Dad always said, 'We met each other when we occupied the same crib,'" Roger said.

Mary and Donald made a life together farming north of Rudyard, north of Hingham and near Tiber Dam. They had three kids, Roger and two daughters, Liz Walden and Edi Wager, both of Portland. Mary also has six grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

In the beginning though, the young Lincoln family had gravity-fed water in their house, and in 1948 got electricity, but they had to use an outhouse until 1951 and didn't have a rural phone line until 1955.

Mary substitute-taught on occasion through the years to help the community when they had trouble finding or keeping a teacher and to make a little extra money.

Donald learned to fly in 1946 and started a side business spraying crops in 1949 "and that kind of changed the economic outlook for my parents," Roger said, because it supplemented their income from their small farm, which had some cropland and a few cows.

Donald crop dusted for about 10 years before turning the business over to Roger, who was married and farming and benefited from the economic boost of a side business, as well.

Mary didn't take to flying, but she did agree to take a flying farm tour with Donald and some other farming couples. She and Donald took off from the road in front of their house at the tale end of a party the afternoon of their 25th wedding anniversary, Roger said.

"She and Dad were just made for each other," Roger said.

Donald, who died in 1996, took Mary camping in Glacier National Park for their honeymoon because they didn't have enough money for a hotel, Roger said. On their way home they stopped at Donald's sister's house in Etheridge where they hocked their spare tire to have enough money for gas to get all the way home. They laughed about that story a lot, Roger said, and had a lot of fun together throughout their life.

When they first married, they lived across the road from Donald's parents in a house that had no indoor bathroom plumbing, and one day, Mary's mother-in-law, who Roger said was a little nosey, complained that "you two even go to the bathroom together."

Mary enjoyed handiwork, Roger said, including embroidery, knitting and hardunger, which is something like a combination of embroidery, cross-stitching and lace-making - and sometimes spelled hardanger.

She spent hours working on her crafts by the windows, Roger said, even into her early- to mid-90s when she entered some of her hardunger work in the fair at Shelby and won first place along with the people's choice award.

The daughter of a circuit-riding Evangelical preacher, Mary has strong faith, Roger said. She was always involved in the church and still goes every Sunday with Roger.

She was always keen to help others, even taking her neighbor and his children under her care when he became a single father. They remain close friends today, Roger said.

"That was kind of Mom's thing," Roger said. "She would see something that needed to be done and say, 'You know, I can do that.'"