Happy 106th Birthday Ruth MacFarlane, an Orange County denizen since 1918
Expand
Ruth MacFarlane was a little disappointed by the number of candles on her cake. “I wanted all 106,” she remarked, before blowing out just three.
MacFarlane wasn’t born yesterday. So the “surprise” birthday luncheon hosted by her assisted living residence Wednesday, March 19, didn’t really come as a surprise.
In fact, MacFarlane herself orchestrated media coverage – telling Sunrise at Tustin employees to get the word out.
“I thought my photograph should be in the newspaper,” she unabashedly explained.
Ten members of her family – which includes three children, seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren – gathered to help her celebrate. “Don’t listen to anything my children have to say,” MacFarland advised. “Their brain isn’t as good as mine.”
Two lively great-grandkids, Tustin Ranch Elementary students Brooklyn and Brandon Hamilton, showed up.
“I accidentally told my friends she’s turning 115,” Brandon, 7, announced. “I was trying to remember: 107? 108? What the heck, I’ll say 115!”
MacFarlane is one of the oldest people in Orange County. And she’s the oldest at Sunrise, where she counts among three centenarians.
Bill Grant comes in second at 103. Both graduated from Santa Ana High, but due to their vast age difference didn’t know each other there. What did Grant think of MacFarlane’s fete? “She’s kind of old,” he shrugged. “I’m trying to catch up.”
Her family roots run deep in central Orange County, with her two oldest children and even their spouses Santa Ana High alumni, as well.
MacFarlane – then Ruth Beemar – moved with her parents and four siblings from Illinois to Santa Ana at age 4. “It was during the Spanish flu,” she said of the 1918 pandemic. “My parents didn’t want to take the train so we drove.”
MacFarlane recalled an idyllic childhood, riding horses around her family’s 20-acre walnut orchard.
After graduation, she enrolled in beauty school.
“I could do anything with hair and nails, but I didn’t much like it,” MacFarlane said. “So I got a job as a dental assistant.”
A few years later, at 23, she married Robert MacFarlane – an electrician who later opened a shop on Main Street. Even after his death in 2003, the building continued to bear his name.
“A doctor told us we probably couldn’t have children. Three months later, this one was on her way,” MacFarlane said, pointing to daughter Sandra Berry, 80. “We were very happy about that.” Next came John, now 75, then Doug, 67.
They raised the brood in Santa Ana and then Tustin, where Doug MacFarland graduated from Foothill High.
“Mom never learned to drive,” he said. “Dad took care of her.”
Sharing memories of rock-hard pork chops, MacFarlane’s children laughingly agreed she was a mediocre cook. But she kept a beautiful home and, ever devoted, practiced baseball with her kids when their father worked late.
In 1970, the couple moved to Villa Park. Leaving her home of 48 years last year “was like a stab in my heart,” MacFarlane said. “I loved that house so much.”
MacFarlane didn’t much feel like talking about all the major events in her lifetime, such as World War II and the first man on the moon. But she is proud to claim a grandfather who fought in the Civil War “for our greatest president ever, Abraham Lincoln.”
All of her friends have died. “You don’t think about it much because you expect old people to die,” MacFarlane said. But when a grandson died of cancer at 47, “It was a terrible loss, a terrible blow.”
MacFarlane chose to sit with her regular lunch buddies rather than at the long table set for her kinfolk.
“She’s the sweetest, smartest and funniest one at our table,” said Ethel Poh, 88. “She laughs a lot. That’s why she’s lived so long.”
At party’s end, John MacFarlane deflated, for future use, the three Mylar balloons spelling “106.”
“In three years,” he said, “we’ll turn the 6 around for 109.”