Idonna Gage celebrated her 100th birthday Friday at Hilltop's "The Commons" Senior Retirement Community. Gage shared cake with her friends and family.
Photo by Richie Ann Ashcraft.
Idonna Gage couldn’t stop smiling as friends and family came to shake her 100-year-old hand Friday at Hilltop’s “The Commons” Senior Retirement Community.
“I’m just an ordinary woman,” Gage said, adding that she didn’t do anything special to reach 100 years. She didn’t eat anything different than anyone else or exercise every day, “I’m just lucky,” she said.
Gage was born in 1909 in Winnemucca, Nev. She started traveling with her family all over the western United States.
She attended Abraham Lincoln High in Los Angeles, Calif. notably with actor Robert Young. Young and Gage played the leading roles in their school’s performance of “Robin Hood.” Young later would be known as the world’s best father for his role in “Father Knows Best,” a hit radio show that later became a television series in the 1950s.
Gage was married for 30 years to Warren Martin. They had three children together.
Gage worked as the secretary to the president at Citrus Community College in Azusa, Calif., until her retirement. She was also a ballroom dancer.
She later enjoyed nearly 40 years of marriage to her second husband, Larry Gage. The Gages traveled the world together. They rode camels in Egypt, toured the Greek Islands, toured Alaska and the Panama Canal. They also visited seven countries during an auto tour of Europe.
Her daughters are hoping they are lucky enough to have inherited their mother’s long-life genes.
Gage is still going strong and is not planning on this being her last birthday. “I don’t want to be 101,” she said, “Let’s skip that and go right to 102.”
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