This us-regionswoman celebrated a milestone birthday – “110-years young” – a banner hanging in the dining room of her assisted living facility read.
Bonita Gibson, believed to be the second-oldest woman in the state of Michigan, lived through two world wars, the Great Depression and a global pandemic – and she celebrated Sunday on the Fourth of July surrounded by friends and family wearing her signature red lipstick and cat eye-frame glasses.
Bonita Gibson celebrated her 110th birthday on the Fourht of July.
(Courtesy of Bonita Gibson and Erin McGraw.)
“It was wonderful – so many of my friends and family came and decorated,” Gibson told Fox News of the celebration that took place in the dining room of her assisted living facility in Rochester Hills.
While Gibson relishes in watching her favorite TV shows like “Jeopardy” and “The Price Is Right,” anyone who knows the vivacious senior can agree she’s one tough cookie, living a life of adversity and adventure.
The supercentenarian survived whooping cough as a child, battled the measles and mumps, and, in the last year, she recovered from COVID-19 at 109-years-old.
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When asked about the highlights of her life, she recalls the time her cousin went off to World War I, remembering the letters he’d write to her while he was serving in the military.
“My aunt came out on the porch with him. She was crying so I knew something important had come up. Later, we were happy to hear from him,” Gibson remembered.
She also reminisced on days living in a tent after marrying her husband in 1930 when they didn’t have $5 to afford rent and, during happier times, traveling the country in a trailer to visit her son, Gibson shared by phone Tuesday.
“My husband and I were married in 1930 and we had no money so we didn’t have $5 to pay rent. We lived in a tent for a while and he had to walk a mile and a half out in the country to work,” Gibson recalled.
While she’s faced her share of hardships, Gibson is living proof that age is only a number, and she’s continuing to live life to its fullest. At 99, Gibson got on her first plane ride and at 106 she tried her luck at a casino for the first time, Erin McGraw, a manager at Waltonwood Life Enrichment, where Gibson now lives told FOX.
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“She gets her hair done once a week, puts rollers in her hair and picks out her own clothes – she’s got really good taste,” McGraw said, adding that Gibson had lived independently up until she was 102.
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After living more than a century there is one thing Gibson says she can do without.
“I hate exercise,” she quips.
