Penticton

Vera Mackenzie smiled from ear to ear as she easily blew out the candles on her birthday cake and opened gifts and cards at the Lakeside Care Residence in Penticton.

Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

Vera Mackenzie celebrates her 102nd birthday surrounded by family and friends.

After all, this wasn’t just any birthday party. Mackenzie turned 102 on Thursday, a feat she credits to healthy living and a busy social life.

“I feel pretty good about being 102,” she said, as she sat surrounded by friends, family and balloons at the party. “I guess it is because I have always been active.”

Mackenzie was born in 1910 in Dominion, Nova Scotia, the only girl in a family of six children.

The family moved to Edson, Alberta, where her father worked as a schoolteacher, and she spent much of her time looking after her five younger brothers.

She married Dick Mackenzie in 1934 and the couple lived in an apartment in the West End of Vancouver near English Bay.

His work with the railroad brought them to Princeton, then Revelstoke. The family eventually settled in Penticton.

Over the years she was busy raising two children and working as a schoolteacher.

The family liked nothing better than getting out in the bush, where they fished, camped and even panned for gold.

Mackenzie’s daughter Liz Topping said it didn’t surprise her that her mother lived to be over 100.

“She never lets anything bother her and she has always been interested in trying new things and making friends,” she said. “More than anything she has never thought she was old.”