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A little more than 100,000 people in the U.S. can say that they belong to the “Centenarian Club.” Elzene Yancey, a 104-year-old Mountain View resident, is one of them.
Last month, Yancey celebrated her birthday at her Waverly Park home, surrounded by family and about 40 neighbors, turning the usually quiet street into a festive scene.
Yancey’s oldest son, David, credited his mother’s longevity to her penchant for “clean living.”
“I didn’t crave things that were bad for you. I didn’t want them,” Yancey said, adding that the best way to live was also the easiest way to live, which was sticking to a natural lifestyle.
Born on Jan. 16, 1920, Yancey grew up on a Missouri farm with no electricity or running water about 120 miles south of Kansas City. Her parents were farmers and rented out their land to other farmers who also grew wheat, oats and corn. Yancey spent much of her childhood helping in the apple orchards and tending to her family’s livestock – counting the cats, pigs and horses as some of her closest friends.
The year 1920 was notable for other reasons as well. It was the year of prohibition and women’s suffrage, both of which her parents strongly supported, Yancey said.
To this day, Yancey does not drink alcohol. She follows a temperate diet of healthy foods that includes a lot of fruits, vegetables, juice and milk but no coffee. “I like to know that things are as near natural as possible. I’m not a fanatic about nature, but I like natural things,” she said, attributing this to her farm upbringing as well.
Yancey also has a strong sense of civic duty, which her mother cultivated at an early age. Yancey described her mother as a progressive, who strove to give her every opportunity available to girls at the time. This included educational opportunities, and at the age of 5 years, Yancey started attending school in a one-room school house; she was so young that the teacher would make a pallet for Yancey to take naps on when she became tired.
When she was 13 years old, Yancey’s mother took her to Washington, D.C. to attend a lunch that Eleanor Roosevelt hosted at the White House. Yancey described the event as a special occasion connected to the Women’s Club of America, an organization that brought country women together to share ideas about how to improve their lives and make societal changes.
Yancey was the only child at the event. “I can still remember walking in front of Mrs. Roosevelt and her leaning over and shaking hands with me and acting like I was an adult,” she said.
These formative experiences helped shape Yancey’s desire to attend Drury College in Springfield, Missouri and obtain a teaching degree; she was a school teacher until WWII when she decided to help the war effort by working in an airplane factory in Kansas City.
The end of the war was a vivid memory for Yancey who recalled that her boss said, “The war is over, go home,” upon which everybody dropped everything and ran out onto the streets to celebrate.
Two years after the war ended, in 1947, Yancey met and married her husband, Chet, whom she described as a great friend and life partner until his death in 2000. They had two sons and, in 1963, the family moved to Mountain View to support Chet’s real estate business.
At the time, the Waverly Park neighborhood was still mostly undeveloped, with the Yanceys settling on a small parcel of land that was surrounded by apricot orchards. They chose the house because of its proximity to public schools; they also liked the quietness of the street where children could run and play freely.
Yancey was particularly taken with the apricot trees that grew on their property. She would harvest the fruits, using them for pies, cobblers and jams. Later on, when her sons attended Stanford University, Yancey joined the Stanford Mothers’ Club (now the Stanford Parents’ Club) where she became president and sold dried apricots, with all the money donated to student scholarships.
Always involved in the Mountain View community, Yancey was a PTA president, led Boy Scout troops and regularly volunteered as a poll worker during elections, which she credited as part of her civic pride as a suffrage baby.
Upon their arrival to Mountain View, the Yanceys also joined Los Altos United Methodist Church. To this day, Yancey attends church regularly. The fellowship is an important part of her social network.
Yancey’s sons live nearby and visit often with their families too. “She’s never alone,” David Yancey said, explaining that his mother has a housemate and home care professionals helping her too.
“If I could see, I’d be perfect,” Yancey laughed, adding that her hearing was not as good as it used to be either. She was not daunted by these health constraints, however, attributing them to the natural progression of time.
Yancey also offered advice for those seeking wisdom from a centenarian. “Live every day as the best you can because they’re all limited. We don’t have unlimited life on this Earth. So, as you go along, make the most of each day. It’s always very precious,” she said.
