A great century

Bryce Alderton

From an Arizona mining town to the California coast, a hundred years

of energy and exuberance continue to fill Judith Stuckey’s veins.

Friends and family helped Stuckey, or “Gi-Gi,” celebrate her 100th

birthday Sunday at Avalon at Newport West, the assisted-living community

Stuckey moved into in August after spending 22 years in Leisure World.

Nearly all of the 20 or so guests had nothing but admiration and awe

when they looked at the smiling Stuckey, wearing a white pearl necklace

and dressed in a red blouse pinned with a lily.

“It just blows my mind, the energy she has,” said Doug Stuckey, her

grandson and public affairs director for the Newport Beach Chamber of

Commerce. “It makes me feel good, there’s good genes in me.”

Stuckey remembered when his grandmother climbed to the top of the

football stadium at Oregon State University in the mid-1990s, where he

played football.

“Her system is so well-kept,” Doug Stuckey said. “She’s always in a

good mood, always wants to know what’s going on.”

Sitting beside Judith Stuckey was her longtime 101-year-old friend

Viola Krahn. The two met in grade school in Arizona and grew up going to

dances in high school with their other friend, Audrey Smallhouse.

“We would walk to the dances, come home and stand on the corner and

yak, yak, yak about the dances,” Krahn said.

To escape the summer heat, the three friends rode the train all night

from Phoenix to Los Angeles and then took a streetcar to Long Beach,

where they would stay for the summer, Krahn said.

Judith Stuckey held a picture of the three girls walking on the beach.

She and husband Hallman Stuckey, who died in 1977, moved to Newport

Beach in the 1950s from Glendale, where they had lived since 1923. The

couple purchased and subdivided land on Irvine Avenue and Via Marina,

where some of Judith’s friends and family still reside.

Her granddaughter, Erin Locke, spent many days at the Irvine Avenue

home, building forts, making dresses and sitting on a rock, reaching up

to pick persimmons off a tree. After Locke picked the fruits, Stuckey

Stuckey froze them and then gave the fruit back to Locke to eat.

“That’s one of my biggest memories, of eating them,” said Locke, who

now lives in Costa Mesa with husband Jeff, 6-year-old daughter Kailen and

10-month-old Joshua. “I have her old sewing machine in my house. Now I

just have to learn how to sew.”

Neighbors from Laguna Woods described Stuckey as one who cherishes her

independence, supports her family and has a good sense of humor.

“She was incredibly cheerful, fun to be with and was wonderfully

supportive of her family,” said Ruth Goldberg, sitting alongside her

87-year-old husband Irv. The Goldbergs were neighbors with Judith for 15

years.

“She insisted on going to the bank, driving to the market and going to

the hairdresser by herself. She was driving a car until 1994,” Ruth

Goldberg said.

As Doug Stuckey lit the wax candle in the shape of the number “100”

and revelers sang “Happy Birthday,” Judith Stuckey shared a birthday

wish.

“That everyone be happy in their lives,” she said.

* Bryce Alderton is the news assistant. He may be reached at (949)

574-4298 or by e-mail at o7 bryce.alderton@latimes.comf7 .