No secret nor Fountain of Youth, just active lives for centenarians

Sally Mitchell remembers seeing Halley’s Comet as a 5-year-old from the back of a hay wagon. In 1986, she saw the short-period comet for a second time, at the age of 81.

For their longevity, Mitchell, 102, and Juanita Thurston — who celebrates her 101st birthday today — were honored earlier this month with lifetime achievement awards from the Thursday Morning Women’s Club, a social group to which both belong.

“I am very grateful for my health,” Mitchell said after receiving her honorary plaque. “I never dreamed I would be living to be 102 years old.”

The pair’s doctors are amazed by the women’s mental acuteness and physical condition, as neither suffers from any major ailments, nor do they take any medication, with the exception of vitamins.

Club member Be LaForce, who dined with Thurston when she was honored at this month’s meeting, offered an explanation for her companion’s longevity.

“To look as good and as young as she does, she must have been to the Fountain of Youth,” the 81-year-old said.

Though Mitchell, who lived much of her life in Newport Beach, and Thurston, who lives on Balboa Island, did not mention any specific secrets to longevity, they have both led very active lives, traveling extensively.

The most prominent commonalities they share today seem to be their calm demeanors and devotion to a certain television personality — both are avid watchers of “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

Thurston, who said she feels no different since celebrating her centennial, moved to California when she was 13 after her family discovered oil on the property they claimed in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. She and her brothers wanted to attend the University of Southern California.

Flattered to receive the award, Thurston said she has enjoyed the fellowship the women’s club offers. In addition to being active there, she entertains visitors to the Oasis Senior Center in Corona del Mar with her vocal stylings each week.

“I’ve had a wonderful life — that’s all I can say,” said Thurston, who sits on her beachfront porch each day to take in the view and visit with neighbors. She gave up driving her beloved Buick at the age of 97.

Living with her daughter Suzanne Becker in Irvine, Mitchell gets her daily exercise walking a couple blocks to retrieve the mail and picking up leaves in the garden. Becker enjoys munching on the cookies her mother bakes and appreciates her silver-polishing skills, crediting Mitchell’s longevity to her enduring curiosity and the scrupulous attention she gives to her health.

“She always seems to be interested in what happens in other people’s lives and what’s going on around her,” Becker said. “She reads the newspaper every day, cover to cover.”

Mitchell’s inquisitiveness has taken her from the Michigan farmhouse where she was born to cities around the world. She moved to Pasadena in May of 1927 to be with her family following her mother’s death, arriving the same day that Charles Lindbergh completed his nonstop flight from New York to Paris.

After meeting her husband while working for the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co., now known as AT&T;, the couple moved to Newport Beach following their retirement. Mitchell got involved with the Thursday Morning Women’s Club, originally founded as a travel club, in 1963 to keep up with friends she had met while vacationing in places like the Philippines and Spain.

“She’s more active than a lot of people a lot younger than she is,” said club President Marty Clark, who credited Mitchell for her extensive involvement in the group — designing table decorations, planning outings and modeling in fashion shows.

For Mitchell, changes in efficiency mark the duration of her life.

She remembers living without running water and electricity in the home, and fondly recalls her first plane ride, noting the contrast of driving cross country over the span of several days and returning to California by airplane in only a few hours.

“A lot of things have happened in my long life,” said Mitchell, who remembers the opening of the Panama Canal and when the zipper was invented. “I have so many wonderful memories.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Thursday Morning Women’s Club

WHEN: 11 a.m. on the second Thursday of each month

WHERE: Mesa Verde Country Club, 3000 Club House Road,

Costa Mesa

COST: $30 (includes lunch and live entertainment)

INFO: (714) 960-4504 for membership information