Congratulations to Oma Grove, above, who lives at Ecumen Emmanuel Community in Detroit Lakes, Minn!  She became the newest member of Ecumen’s Changing Aging Centenarian Club. Oma celebrated her 100th birthday last week.

Oma grew up in a farming family, which farmed near Osakis, Minn., and later in Jackson County.  She went to high school in Jackson and did her teacher’s training there and then taught country school for two years before getting married.  She told the Detroit Lakes Tribune in an interview that her teaching career lasted two years, because "continuing to teach after marriage was simply not done in those days."

Oma and her husband Donald lived in Adrian, Minn., where her husband operated a farm implement shop with his father and brother.  Oma kept books for a couple of years, but then was busy raising three daughters.  She and Donald lived in Adrian for 60 years before relocating to Detroit Lakes.  They were married for 67 years before he died in 2002.

Oma’s family now includes 14 grandchildren, 30 great grandchildren and “about a dozen great greats, along with a lot of step-greats and step-great-greats,” Oma said in her Detroit Lakes Tribune interview.