Margaret Hanasalo celebrated her 100th birthday on Sep. 10 with family and friends at Lake Country Manor in Devils Lake. (Photo courtesy Farah Trottier)
It’s not everyday a gal turns 100 years old!
Margaret Hanesalo takes most things in stride, even turning 100 years old!
She was born Margaret Svercl on a farm about halfway between Brocket, Michigan and Lakota, “Out in the middle of nowhere in Walsh County,” she says with a grin.
Her folks were Joseph and Annie Svercl, North Dakota farmers, the “salt of the earth.”
Margaret attended Sauter School, a four-room brick edifice, she called “the big school.” Attending at least until she had made it through one year of high school. Things were different in those days, she explained.
At 18 years old she married Verner Hanesalo and together they made a good life, “a happy life” on the farm near Mapes.
When Verner went to serve in the Army during World War II, Margaret moved into Devils Lake to live with her mom. While there she worked at the Great Northern Hotel washing dishes. “It wasn’t hard work, they had big machines to do most of it,” Margaret explained. The woman she had replaced was out sick with the mumps and she must have returned to work too soon, because when she did, she gave it to Margaret who decided to leave that job and was content to stay home with her mom.
Verner served in Japan, when he was overseas, but she told stories about going to visit him when he was stateside for training. “I took a bus all by myself and all the way to Colorado to see him when he was in the Army.”
She also took a Troop Train to Washington hoping to meet up with him on the train, but found out that Verner was on a different train so she had to take a taxi to Buckley Field to find her Verner when she arrived at their destination. On both trips she found help from people she met along the way, adding that in those days you didn’t have to worry about strangers.
“It was a different world, then.”
She worked in a box factory making 75 cents an hour while they lived in Washington state, but was glad to go back “home” after a short few months out west.
The Hanesalos had their share of sorrow. Their first child was a lovely baby girl who Margaret described as a “perfect little doll.” Although she was brought to full term, she didn’t make it. They named her Marie. Daughter Shirley and son Gary came along to make their home complete.
They had a little house on the farm near Mapes, ND, and though they had lived for a time elsewhere it broke Margaret’s heart when flooding took their farm and home.
Dementia hit Verner in his later years and Margaret cared for him five difficult years before he passed in October of 1995. “I couldn’t leave him, even for a few minutes,” she recalled. She prefers not to dwell on that. She’s glad to be in North Dakota, thankful for her home at Lake Country Manor in Devils Lake and all the people who make her life there enjoyable.
Margaret sums up her 100 years this way, “It wasn’t a very exciting life, but it was a happy life.” Her sight and her hearing fail her, now, but she puts on her tennis shoes and walks the halls at the Manor with her handy walker greeting friends wherever she goes, residents and workers alike.
Her secret for living so long? Margaret says there is no secret, “Just eat good food, live happy, don’t let things get to you, and make friends wherever you are.”
