LEWISTON – Libby Goldman remembers World War I. When she graduated from Bates College, she had to find work during the Great Depression.

She lived through the great fire of 1933 that destroyed part of New Auburn, and the great flood of 1936. She also remembers her first day of kindergarten in 1913.

Goldman, who lives in an assisted-living apartment at Montello Heights, turns 100 today. Some of her fellow residents at Montello are former students.

She’ll have at least two birthday parties in her honor, but she said that becoming a centenarian has never been something she focused on. “I never thought about it. I just lived my life.”

Longevity wasn’t prominent in her family. Her mother’s father did live to 95, “but he’s the only one I know who lived that long. Most lived to their late 70s or early 80s.”

Goldman converses easily. She hears well. Her memory is sharp. She moves about without a walker, sometimes using the arm of anyone who’s available. She cooks her own breakfast and dinner in her own apartment each day.

An Auburn teacher for 40 years, she never married. She has outlived many relatives.

Goldman smiled when asked her secret to living so long, so well.

“I never learned to drive, so I did a lot of walking always,” she said. “I used to walk from New Auburn to Bates.” She attributes all that walking to keeping her fit and healthy.

Secondly, “I eat food that is recommended for good health. I really do … I don’t just read about it, I follow it.”

Her daily breakfast is oatmeal and milk. Lunch, served at Montello, is her big meal of the day. “Supper may be a poached egg on toast. I have a very light supper.”

She never drank, except at weddings and other special events.

“I never smoked.”

To America from Lithuania

Goldman was born in 1908 in a little village in Lithuania. When she was a few months old her family came to the United States. Her father wanted to find work and a better life, so the family moved to New York City, where he had relatives.

When she was 3, they moved to Auburn, preferring life in a small Maine town to the big city. Goldman started kindergarten at the Wilson School at 5.

“At my age of 100, I forget things five years ago, but I’ve never forgotten this,” she said with a laugh. Her teacher on her first day was Miss Reed, “a sweet little thing. I was happy with her.” She came to school knowing how to read. An aunt in New York taught her.

On her second day, the school moved her to the first grade. The first-grade teacher was the opposite of Miss Reed. “She was very tall and very stern. I wept bitterly,” she said.

Goldman graduated from Edward Little High School in 1925, and graduated from Bates College four years later. She credited an Auburn principal and teacher as the forces that helped her get to college.

Principal ‘turned my life around’

Lincoln School Principal Mary Carroll taught French and Latin. “She was a wonderful teacher, a wonderful teacher, a wonderful woman,” Goldman said.

“She went to my house and said to my parents, ‘If you can possibly afford it, you should send Libby to college.’ My parents were great admirers of education, but they did not have a formal education.”

In the early 1920s “women weren’t going to college. But my parents thought the world of Miss Carroll. They thought if she took the trouble to come and tell us, we better see what we can do.”

Goldman’s parents had small savings for their daughter and two sons to start out life. They asked the brothers, who weren’t going to college, if their savings could be used for Goldman’s education. The savings, and Goldman’s living at home and walking to Bates each day, made college possible.

When Goldman graduated from Bates in 1929, “it was the beginning of the Great Depression,” she said. “There were very few jobs available. But the Bates Placement Bureau got me a job at Jay High School.”

She lived in Livermore Falls and taught at Jay. Each day she taught three classes of Latin, two of French and one algebra class. She didn’t like it. “I never could get caught up with my work, correcting papers,” she said. “Here I was, 21, with boys in my algebra class bigger than I was. I stuck it out to June, then I said, ‘I’m not spending my life this way.'”

She enrolled in a business school in Auburn, planning to move to New York to pursue a business career. Again Mary Carroll intervened. She called Goldman, telling her one of her teachers was getting married and quitting. She wanted the young Bates grad to take her place.

“I told her, ‘Miss Carroll, you know I wasn’t very happy that first year of teaching.’ She said, ‘Libby, I know you. With my help you’ll do fine and come to like it.’ “

She did. She taught at Lincoln School, which had grades five through nine, then later at Edward Little. In all, she taught for 40 years in Auburn.

She’s glad she did. It was a bad time to go into business in New York. “Remember this was the beginning of the horrible Depression, one of the worst we’ve had.” And she loved teaching. “That’s why I stayed so long.”

‘Enjoy whatever is enjoyable’

Looking back, Goldman said one of life’s biggest differences are appliances, “for women the number of things they don’t have to do,” like washing clothes by hand.

“I remember taking a pan of water from under the refrigerator. The refrigerator was kept cold though ice on the top. You bought big blocks of ice” that went into the ice box to keep food cold.

Another big change is the many “wonderful medical advances,” such as penicillin and vaccinations that prevent childhood diseases. “I knew a wonderful girl that had polio … The medical discoveries could have saved the lives of several people I knew.”

Goldman goes to Hairlines, a beauty salon off Russell Street in Lewiston, every other week to get her hair done by Diane Lavertu, who has done Goldman’s hair for 45 years.

“She became my customer, then my friend. Now she’s part of my family,” Lavertu said. Years ago Lavertu and her family “adopted” Goldman as their aunt, and they often spend the holidays together.

“She’s part of our lives,” Lavertu said.

Two weeks ago, Lavertu and her family held a gathering to celebrate her upcoming birthday. In attendance were several Bates College students, who were there to honor the Class of ’29 alum. Another celebration is being planned at Goldman’s synagogue.

Goldman was asked what advice she can offer.

“I never give people advice,” she said. “I just love people, I really do. I think that’s what kept me living. I love so many I don’t want to leave them,” she said with a laugh.

Living well to 100 takes “good genes and living properly,” she said. And daily prayer helps.

“I pray every day, that I may be given – I don’t think you have it, you’re given it – the courage to take all the hard things. There isn’t anybody that lives that doesn’t have hard things to take in life,” she said.

And a second part to her daily prayer “is to have the good sense to enjoy whatever is enjoyable. If you go past some pretty flowers, enjoy looking at them, or (if you’re talking to) a nice young lady,” she said as she patted a reporter’s hand. “That’s my prayer every day.”