‘She’s always the lady’

She’s going strong despite the pair of hip replacements; and, oh yeah, despite the fact that she turned 104 Thursday.

Alyce Hall has become somewhat of a legend around the halls of Newport Beach Plaza, a retirement home on Superior Avenue in Newport Beach.

Everybody wants to be her friend. Everybody is her friend. And they all sang “Happy Birthday” as the cake was rolled out.

She was born Jan. 28, 1906. To put that in perspective, she was 23 years old when the Great Depression hit, and, by today’s standards, she was virtually middle-aged during World War II.

Technically speaking, however, “middle age” really didn’t arrive for Hall until she was 52 years old, in 1958, when people still feared the Soviets and were cranking up Elvis Presley.

“She’s not one to sit down and not want to go anywhere,” said Karen Ashley, a nurse at the 110-member retirement home. “She loves car rides.”

Hall was born in Northern California, married a man named Paul and worked as a bookkeeper most of her life, according to Marge Ecker, a close friend. But Hall’s husband has long since died and, unfortunately, not much else is known about the history of her life, as there are no surviving family members, Ecker said.

Hall never had any children. That’s where the retirement home folks and employees step in and oblige.

“We all love her,” said Jennifer Gifford, program supervisor for the home. “She’s so full of life, and she’s always the lady. She always jokes about how she wants to wear my boss’ high-heeled shoes.

“As for the trick to living a long life, she has long attributed her longevity to having played a lot of golf in her day. In fact, she still wears the gold medallion around her neck — the one that shows she once made a hole in one at the Santa Ana Country Club.”

When she turned 100, she went on a cruise in Iceland, Ecker said, adding “We’ll see what next year brings.”