ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603290009
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN A. MONTGOMERY SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
It's a significant occasion when someone in the Roanoke Valley turns 100 years old. By an educated estimate, there are but a few dozen centenarians among the metro's quarter-million population.
But when two Roanokers reach the century mark on the same day, as Marian Kleps Rich and Josie St. Clair Saunders did two weeks ago, now that's positively rare.
It was Friday, March 15, the ides of March, when each celebrated the milestone with a party in her honor - held on opposite sides of the valley.
Marian Rich and Josie Saunders do not know each other. Their lives have traveled vastly different paths. Yet each is rightly proud of her special achievement, and in separate interviews recently, they shared some remarkably familiar insights.
Early bedtime, strong religious faith, genuine interest in others, careful mate selection and a carefree attitude - especially toward diet - surface as common trademarks of their long lives.
The inventions that have materialized within their lifetimes are mind-boggling: automobiles and motion pictures; televisions and microwaves; computers and videos.
But these women do not credit their longevity to modern conveniences. Instead, they attribute it to an adherence to age-old values.
"I've had a simple life,'' said Rich, whose biography indicates otherwise. Born in Maryland and reared in Philadelphia, Rich earned a college degree in mathematics from Bryn Mawr College 80 years ago. She was valedictorian of her class.
She taught for several years at the Holmquest School, a girls' preparatory school in Pennsylvania.
When she was 38, she married the late Dr. Gilbert Rich, a psychiatrist and psychologist. They later lived in Milwaukee, before moving to Roanoke in 1952. They also maintained a vacation home in Maine, which Marian Rich has since donated to The Nature Conservancy of Arlington.
Rich has toured Europe, and within the past decade has driven to Alaska. Her family members include a stepson and a foster son.
Rich's career included extensive volunteer work. She is a lifetime board member of the Mental Health Association of Roanoke Valley and also of the YWCA of Roanoke Valley.
She was known to bake birthday cakes for employees at her husband's practice. "I threw parties everywhere,'' she said.
The favor was returned two weeks ago. At Rich's 100th birthday party held at Brandon Oaks Health Care Center, Roanoke Mayor David Bowers was among the invited guests. "There was a roomful of people there,'' she said.
At the Berkshire Health Care Center in Vinton, Josie Saunders gathered with her family and friends for a similar observance.
"I don't know how I made 100,'' Saunders said. "I just lived my life on out.''
Born in Bedford County, Saunders attended school through the sixth grade. She never has ventured beyond state boundaries. "I went to Norfolk one time to see my sister,'' she said.
Saunders' father, the late Joseph St. Clair, ran a general store from the front of their house in Bedford County around the turn of the century. Her father often would travel by horse and buggy to the Roanoke City Market to sell some of his wares.
The round trip was perhaps 20 miles. "He could make it up and back in a day's time,'' Saunders said.
Saunders was nearly 30 when she married the late Fred Saunders. The mother of six children, grandmother of 13, great-grandmother of 23 and great-great-grandmother of five, Saunders has devoted much of her life to taking care of the young.
Her hobbies have included gardening, cooking, crocheting and quilting. "My favorite was making quilts,'' she said. "I'd take pieces of cloth and sew them together.''
Saunders' son Ivan tells of his mother resisting the use of telephones for many years after they became commonplace. "And then, after she got one, she talked on it all the time,'' he said.
"I didn't talk on it all the time,'' his mother corrected him.
Neither Saunders nor Rich sees well these days, neither is able to live in her own home, and their hearing is somewhat impaired. But both readily concede their frailties and treat them with a sense of humor.
"I don't remember anything,'' Rich said.
"I won't be able to read this article,'' Saunders said.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Rich, Saunders, color.by CNB