Photo by Jody Isaackson Norma Siverson displays one of her birthday cards she received in honor of her 100th birthday Sept. 21. Siverson’s family gave her a birthday party and a silent auction that raised $1,246 for charity by selling the quits she stitched.

HENDRICKS – Norma Siverson may be 100 years old, but she doesn’t feel it.

“I don’t feel like I’m 100,” she said. “I have no arthritis, no pain. I quilt. My daughter puts the quilt tops on and takes them off the frame,” Siverson said after celebrating her birthday Sept. 21. “I’ve made 21 of block quilts. My daughters said ‘We’re going to sell them at your birthday party.’ We raised $1,246. I gave it all away. We divided it between two boys camps in the Twin Cities area.”

The 100 years young Hendricks resident still enjoys an active lifestyle. She has participated in a literary club since 1960, is on the hospital auxiliary, the American Legion Auxiliary and a monthly Bible circle. She said she loves reading history books and doing daily Bible readings.

“I haven’t missed a day of church, unless there was a storm,” Siverson said. “I don’t drive a car anymore, but I drive the golf cart my son, Ralph, gave to me four years ago, and in the winter, I pay a lady a dollar a ride to pick me up for church.”

Siverson said she loves to play dominoes, goes out for supper with her son Wednesdays and eats at senior dining every day. If the weather is too bad to go out, she will order the meal delivered, she said.

“I love to eat and will eat anything,” she said. “I love vegetables and fruits. I eat all kinds of meat and fish. I even eat sweets.”

Staying active is only part of her secret to longevity.

“My parents lived into their 90s,” Siverson said. “My father, Lars Tvedt, lived to be 97 and my mother, Selma Tvedt (nee Anderson), lived to be 96.”

Siverson was born Sept. 21, 1918, in Mitchell, South Dakota, and grew up on a farm near Brandt, South Dakota. She attended a country school before going to normal school for a teaching degree.

Her greatest accomplishment was to win local, county (Deuel) and regional dramatic reading contests four years in a row and nearly went to state competition.

“When I graduated high school, my parents asked me what I wanted to be — a nurse or a teacher,” she said. “I had an aunt who was a teacher, and my mother was a nurse. I said, ‘I think I want to teach,’ so they sent me to Madison, South Dakota, for one year.”

Because she had taken only one year, she was permitted to teach only at country schools. Her first year of teaching was at her alma mater just across the road from her home place.

“I was paid $45 per month. I gave all my checks to my father to buy seed for the farm,” she said. “All but the last one. That last check I got to spend on clothes and shoes for myself. I was pretty proud of myself.”

Siverson wanted more out of her career, though, so the second year, she applied to teach at Toronto, South Dakota, and was accepted. She had 26 students in grades first through eighth. She boarded with a family known as the Trankles.

Mrs. Trankle was a good cook and provided a nice bedroom, Siverson recalls, however there was no bathroom in the house, only an outhouse and a chamber pot for the bedroom.

“My father came to get me on Friday nights and brought me back on Sundays,” Siverson said. “One day in December, though, Dad said, ‘The car isn’t working tonight, you’re going to have to get another ride home.'”

Siverson, then Tvedt, shared that with her host family over supper that evening. Fortunately, they had a solution that would have a lasting impact on her life.

“They said there was a dance in Toronto that evening. Maybe someone from my hometown will be at the dance and I could ride home with them, they said,” she said.

“At the dance, I sat on a bench along the wall,” Siverson said. “In comes a tall man wearing a blue suit. He caught my eye and raised one finger, meaning he’d like the next dance. I nodded, yes. He held up two fingers, wanting the following dance, too. I shook my head, no. He held up three fingers for the third dance, and I shook my head, yes.”

The band played waltzes and two-steps, Siverson said. They got acquainted while dancing.

“He was so handsome,” Siverson said. “And, he was impressed that I was a teacher. He was from Hendricks and offered me a ride home.”

He was, of course, Victor “Vic” Siverson, who fell in love with Norma Tvedt at first sight. They courted briefly and he proposed. They were married Dec. 31, 1939.

“He wanted a small church wedding on December 31. His parents were married on December 31,” Norma Siverson said. “I said, OK, but I wanted a church wedding. We planned to be married after the service that Sunday and met at the church, but because of a snowstorm the service had been canceled.”

The only people there were the bridal couple, their two attendants, parents, the organist and the minister. The couple honeymooned in the Twin Cities where the bride met the groom’s sisters and the couple shopped for furniture for a small house in Lake Benton they rented when they returned. They lived for the first week in the boarding house Vic Siverson had been living in until then. He was a pharmacist like his father and other relatives. They remained married for 33 years, until Vic Siverson died Dec. 8, 1973.

Siverson said her only regret in life was selling one of her prized possessions, a green Lincoln car for only $1,900 and having to pay the auctioneer $700 of it for his services.

“I also had a beautiful red Lincoln with gray interior,” she said. “I loved to go on trips, so I spent a lot of money on cars.”

She said her family is her most prized possession. She has five children, 16 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.

Siverson feels she’s in good company with four other centenarians living in Hendricks.

One recently died and one is in the nursing home to turn 100 in December. However, the fourth is her next door neighbor whom she tries to visit on a weekly basis.

“I’m glad I can get up in the morning and dress myself and face another beautiful day,” Siverson said. “God takes care of my needs.”