SEQUIM — Focused intently on playing cards arranged in a neat pattern at her kitchen table, Elsie Cameron Johnson’s game face waivers only briefly to make an announcement.
“I’ll be 100 years old on Aug. 30,” Johnson declared with evident pride.
That said, her eyes and rapt attention return to the game of “Kings in a Corner” — a gin rummy-like card game she plays frequently with her in-home caregiver, Kelly Higgs.
Higgs challenges Johnson with a question.
“Elsie, what year were you born?” she asks.
Johnson won’t take the bait.
“I’m going to be 100. What year do you think I was born?” she retorts.
On a side table nestled against one of her walls sits a small glass of creme sherry and a plastic cup containing three Cheetos cheese puffs.
They are the baked kind.
“That’s Elsie’s afternoon snack. She has those at 3 o’clock every day,” Higgs said.
Independent streak
Johnson has an independent streak a mile long.
She lives on her own in a mobile home south of Sequim, counting on Higgs mostly for companionship a few hours each week.
A member of the pioneering Cameron family that helped settle the Sequim-Dungeness Valley, she is long on opinion but increasingly short on memory.
Johnson doesn’t recall much detail about her childhood — including her place of birth — but will tell you repeatedly that she grew up as the eighth of 14 children and walked two miles each day to attend Macleay School.
With prodding from Higgs, she harkens back to life on a farm where there were “lots of chickens” but little work for her, one of five girls who left the outdoor chores to their nine brothers.
