Keys to a longer life

On Sunday, Genevera Gustafson will join the more than 55,000 Americans who have reached 100 years of age, and she’ll likely celebrate by doing what she does most days ? playing the piano.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Gustafson entertains the lunch crowd at the Costa Mesa Senior Center with music including classical and jazz.

“She also knits hand towels for sale in the gift shop,” friend Anne Hogan-Shereshevsky said.

Gustafson will celebrate her birthday on Monday, joined by 100 friends and family.

Darryl Kim, program director for the center, planned the centennial party for Gustafson, who has spent the past decade of lunchtimes volunteering at the piano.

“I told her she could invite one friend for every year,” Kim said. “It’s not too often that someone hits 100, so I just thought we should celebrate it.”

Born in Wisner, Neb., on April 30, 1906, Gustafson started her musical education early.

“When I was 6, I began taking lessons,” Gustafson said. “But I wanted to and was happy to take them.”

She and her two sisters, Adeline and Betty, formed a variety show in the 1920s. The trio performed coast to coast, with some of their most memorable performances taking place in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Gustafson later moved to Colorado, where she performed in her own orchestra with one of her sisters. After about two years of performing, Gustafson met and married her husband, a contractor.

In the 1940s the couple moved to Los Angeles, where they raised four sons and a daughter. The family moved to Orange County years later, and Gustafson’s husband died in 1988. She moved to Costa Mesa a few years later.

“What keeps her going is her family,” said Aviva Goelman, executive director for the center. “They check in on her all of the time.”

Gustafson has five children, 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

“We call her ‘the lady’ here because she’s always dressed up with a smile,” Goelman said. “She has a lot of friends here.”

“She’s just a lovely lady and an accomplished pianist,” said center member Joyce Bunny. “That she plays almost every day is amazing.”(LA)Genevera Gustafson, who turns 100 on Monday, warms up at the piano at Costa Mesa Senior Center before a recent lunchtime performance. She entertains at the center three times a week. Below, Gustafson and her sisters, Adeline and Betty, are shown in the 1920s, when they starred in a traveling variety act. dpt.29-boomers-BPhotoInfo381QFB8M20060429iygpsnnc(LA)dpt.29-boomers-1-CPhotoInfo381QFAVC20060429iygr72ncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Genevera Gustafson warms up at the piano at Costa Mesa Senior Center before a lunch performance.