Lewiston woman making it look easy as she turns 100

Feb. 17—If reaching 100 years of age is a rare achievement, Laura Gehrke, of Lewiston, makes it look like a piece of cake.

A piece of birthday cake, that is. Gehrke has lived in Lewiston since 1948, raised a family, outlived most of her contemporaries, traveled around the world and is still open for another trip — will celebrate her centennial birthday today.

"My doctor says I'm going to live to 105," Gehrke said, seated on a soft cushion in the home she shares with her daughter, Jean Fulton, and a gray and white cat named Stinky.

She's willing to live that long and said her secret to longevity is: "I don't drink and I don't smoke. I never did."

Gehrke was born in Moingona, Iowa, the eldest of six children — three brothers and two sisters, all of whom have died.

It makes her feel "kinda lonely, knowing that I don't have somebody to go back to," she said.

Gehrke's father was a coal miner in Moingona and the family also raised cows. They moved when Gehrke was in the second grade to Berkley, Iowa, where her father began working on the county road crew.

"When I went to school I had a mile to walk," she said. "And when I got there, there was only three of us in the school and I was the only girl. It was a country school."

She met her future husband, Earl Gehrke, during those school years and after they graduated from high school in 1942, Earl joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. He returned home for a short visit during the holidays and the couple were married. Then he shipped back out, eventually landing in China where he worked as an airplane mechanic until the war was over in 1945.

Meanwhile, Laura Gehrke attended business school and then joined a couple of friends who came to Weiser, Idaho, to visit relatives.

"They left and I stayed," she said. She worked a short time in a department store and then was hired as a telephone operator for Bell Telephone.

"I worked long distance and I was the one that took all the calls across where the boys were," she remembered. "I made all the calls."

When Earl finally returned home Gehrke moved back to Iowa, where her husband had planned to farm with his family. They had two children, Jean and Del, and then decided to move to Idaho permanently.

"We had a doctor friend that lived here and we came up to see him and Earl decided that Lewiston was where we were going to live," she said.

While the kids grew up, Earl worked for the city of Lewiston, the Lewiston Tribune in production and finally at the Potlatch mill. He died in 2015, at age 96.

Laura Gehrke worked at the Idaho Department Store, Owl Drug and Wasem's Drug in Clarkston. She also was active in the Eastern Star and Daughters of the Nile women's clubs and remains a member to this day.

She became an avid crocheter and has crocheted more than 40 tablecloths for family members. She also attends Grace Pentecostal Church in the Orchards and said she has traced her family lineage back to the first century in Germany and England.

Through the years the family traveled to Fiji, Alaska and Hawaii several times. Gehrke said it's been a long time since she's been back to Iowa, which she still considers as "home," but she stays in touch with the family members who remain there.

She said daughter Jean would like to take another trip somewhere and Gehrke is all for it.

She has remained in good health most of her life. But she has beaten cancer three times.

"I didn't have to take chemo," she said. "We caught it all three times in time. I had a good doctor."

Gehrke has witnessed lots of changes through these past 100 years, especially as it relates to technology. But she remains engaged with life and said the best thing about becoming 100 is:

"I still have my family around me. My daughter and my son."

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.