Henrietta Dotting's story began on January 4th, 1906, on a farm in Daze, North Dakota, as the first of what would be 6 kids. Her father, a veteran of the Spanish-American war, had already seen war by the time she was born. "He was a senior in high school," she remembers.
She was just eight when the first world war broke out across Europe. "As a kid, you were scared," she told us. "It seemed as though it could come to you, too."
Fast-forward to her peacetime teenage years, when her folks brought home their first radio and television -- the first of the many electronic products we now take for granted and likely wouldn't do well without. And although there were countless chores to do on the farm, Henrietta's family did have one tool in their arsenal that many other families didn't have yet: a car. She says it was quite fun when her dad brought it home. "It was an International," she remembers. "It was red... it had no doors. Vehicles didn't go nearly as fast as they do now; they were more horse-speed."
Henrietta lived through the great depression and the prohibition era -- a time when, Dotting says, many still drank alcohol: "almost in every family, there would be one person who wouldn't obey the law."
Young people still knew how to have fun with their own kind of clubbing, Dotting says. "Sometimes they had dances in the barn, when all the hay was out," she remembers. "They would sweep the floor and have a dance."
And Dotting has also brushed shoulders with a celebrity -- just part of her long journey. "I don't know whether you would know Lawrence Welk?" she asks. "You've heard of him?"
Happy birthday, Henrietta! You've lived through so very much -- more than most of us could tackle in two lifetimes.
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