Miller celebrates 100 years of 'awesome'

Last Sunday, a century to the day after her birth, Marybelle Miller attended her 100th birthday party with friends and family at Sweet Home in Chinook, where the Havreite has lived for the past year.

"This is a really remarkable thing," Scott Slone, Marybelle's grandson, said.

Born in Havre Sept. 3, 1917, to Frank and Vina Stirling, who ranched 16 miles south of Havre in the Bear Paw Mountains, Marybelle grew up with two brothers and one sister, her daughter Linda Slone of Anchorage, Alaska, said. The family raised Hereford cattle on their 3,000 acre ranch, though when she was 10, Marybelle raised 21 bum lambs on her own.

She rode horseback to school at Eagle Rock School, a 3-mile round trip to the one-room school house closest to their home.

Marybelle said she didn't like riding horses, but that's what kids did in those days.

She said her family attended church and country dances with their neighbors in the Bear Paw Mountains, adding that she loved to dance.

"I got into trouble over that many times," she said with a laugh because, later in life, her husband didn't like to dance.

The ranch had a cold water tap indoors, she said, and on washing day - once a week, with homemade soaps - her mother boiled pots of water continually throughout the day on the back burner to wash laundry and for everyone to take baths.

Two of the greatest inventions in her lifetime, she said, were hot and cold running water in the house and the washer and dryer.

Marybelle's life changed dramatically when she moved into town to attend Havre High School. She boarded in homes and worked during her high school years, along with her sister, Edith, before graduating from Havre High in 1936, Linda said.

Without telephones, the girls only talked to their parents when the family came to town, and they never knew if their parents made it home or not and, Linda said, this was something her mother told her was stressful for the girls.

Marybelle worked in the china department of Buttrey's Department Store before marrying Fred Miller of Havre in 1942. They would go on to have two girls, Linda and Laura, and own and operate a photography business, Miller Studio, for more than 30 years, Linda said.

But all that was only after World War II.

While Fred served in the Pacific Theater for 2 1/2 years, Marybelle worked in a factory in California building airplane parts. They spent their first two anniversaries apart.

Fred died in 2007, and Marybelle continued to reside in the same home until she was almost 99 years old, despite that she started losing her eyesight about 20 years ago, Linda said, and has been legally blind for the last five.

While she credits never learning to drive - so having to walk everywhere - with being the secret to her longevity, she's not the first in her family to reach the century mark. Marybelle's mother lived to be 101 years old, Linda said.

Marybelle got to hold her youngest great-grandchild, 5-week-old Fredrick, for the first time last weekend. Infant Fredrick was born on the 10th anniversary of his great-grandfather Fred's death.

All told, Marybelle has eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

"What a special legacy to know," Linda said.

Most of Marybelle's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who have heard the stories of that legacy, were there for the weekend to help her celebrate.

"All I know," great-grandson Coleson Slone, 13, said, "is she's cool, she's old and she's awesome."