On June 12, 1914, Violet Janzen was born, and now she's celebrating her 100th birthday. She says that one thing for sure in her life is that everything has changed.
Janzen, who lives in Yorkton, says that she does not have any great secret to a long life, but she says that she just keeps busy and takes life as it comes. She also says that whatever happened in her life, she always tried to find joy in things rather than dwell on the bad.
"You have to keep happy, you have to stay happy and be thankful for what you've got, that was my attitude in life."
She emphasizes that it wasn't an easy life. Born as one of ten kids, she says she and her family grew up without much money. It was especially difficult after her mother died. She wishes she had had a mother in her life.
"I would have done anything to have a mother to love, and who would have loved me, and we didn't have that. That's something I never had, and so I tried to give that to my family."
As a child her family couldn't afford to buy nice clothes for everyone, and some of the kids would stay home from church or events because there just was not enough to wear.
"Now, the stuff we would have loved to have, we don't look at it, it's a different world."
She also says pests were more common, and every house had a cat to help deal with the mice that would try to get in. She still remembers a party where a mouse popped up from the pantry, causing all her guests to scream in terror.
Life has changed significantly, and Janzen says you can't compare how she grew up to life today. She also says that she would never want to go back to the old days. She says it was much more difficult, and everything was much more difficult when she was young.
"It sometimes scares you to think 'how did we live through that?'"
The big change is that technology has made everything much easier. Janzen can still remember the first time she had running water, and as kids they played with the taps until their dad came in and stopped them.
"Everything is push button! There was no such thing. Even with running water, we had a barrel outside the house that the rainwater ran in and that was our water, there was no push button," she recalls.
Still, she says it's difficult to keep up with the changes, whether it's people growing up quickly or technology changing rapidly around her. Even if everything changes around her, Janzen says she's happy to be living today in a much easier world than the one she grew up in.
