SEQUIM — At first, Elizabeth Platt said she knows no secret to living a long life.
Her 100th birthday “just snuck up on me,” she said on Thursday, as she celebrated the occasion in her sunlit apartment at the Lodge at Sherwood Village.
The place was filled with 100 balloons, numerous bouquets of roses and other blooms, and friends from Boise, Idaho.
Platt was born on July 3, 1908, in Salmon, Idaho, lived in Peoria, Ariz., and moved to Sequim five years ago.
She lost her husband, William Emerson Platt, after 70 years of marriage. Her only son, John, was a Navy pilot who is now deceased.
But on Thursday, Platt’s eyes shone as she spoke of her daughter-in-law, Selma Sauve, and Selma’s husband, Joe.
“They’re my family here,” she said.
The Sauves moved her to Sequim from Arizona, and “they take wonderful care of me.”
Platt’s friend, Helen Gebhardt, who came from Boise to visit the family, added that Selma brought her mother-in-law the huge cluster of balloons and picked a nosegay of hot-pink roses, her favorite flower.
And it turns out Platt does have a motto that relates to her length — and quality — of life.
“It’s never too late,” she said, “to tell a friend you love them.”
