MONROE - Clara Nybroten laughed when asked the secret to reaching the age of 100. Her laugh is light, almost a giggle, as if even contemplating such matters of longevity is silly.
"Oh, I'm sure I wouldn't know," she said finally. She reached the milestone Thursday surrounded by family and friends at Pleasant View Nursing Home, including her 79-year-old son Glenn Delano Nybroten.
Born Clara Marty on April 11, 1913, she was one of seven siblings, two boys and five girls, raised on a dairy farm between Monticello and New Glarus.
"We were the first farm on Hefty Road," remembered her youngest and only surviving sibling, Gloria Jacobson, 83. The seven kids and their parents shared four bedrooms, one outhouse and a washtub - typical in those days for a farm family.
Their schoolhouse was a mile down road. They walked there and back year-round. In the case of a blizzard, their father would pick them up in a horse-drawn sleigh.
As the oldest of her siblings, Clara shouldered many responsibilities of looking after the house and younger children.
"Clara held it together," Gloria said. Their brothers used to call her the "mean one."
Clara married her husband Glenn Nybroten Aug. 17, 1933, wearing an ankle-length blue velvet dress. She can't remember where they married, but her relatives guess it was possibly in Freeport because "that was the style then." They remained married 63 years until he died in 1996. They spent their life together operating a dairy farm in Adams Township near Argyle.
"She ran the place," Gloria said.
It was at their church, Adams Lutheran, that Clara met her good friend Kathryn Hanson, 91. They went out dancing whenever they could - to the Turner Halls in Madison and Monroe, Monticello House, dancehalls in Freeport, Club 118 in Mount Horeb and the Park Ponderosa Ballroom in McFarland.
Kathryn joined in the small birthday gathering at Pleasant View and reminisced about dancing the waltz and the schottische with her friend.
Clara doesn't make it out to their church anymore, but she's earned the distinction of being the oldest living member, Kathryn said.
"Oh, I'm sure I wouldn't know," she said finally. She reached the milestone Thursday surrounded by family and friends at Pleasant View Nursing Home, including her 79-year-old son Glenn Delano Nybroten.
Born Clara Marty on April 11, 1913, she was one of seven siblings, two boys and five girls, raised on a dairy farm between Monticello and New Glarus.
"We were the first farm on Hefty Road," remembered her youngest and only surviving sibling, Gloria Jacobson, 83. The seven kids and their parents shared four bedrooms, one outhouse and a washtub - typical in those days for a farm family.
Their schoolhouse was a mile down road. They walked there and back year-round. In the case of a blizzard, their father would pick them up in a horse-drawn sleigh.
As the oldest of her siblings, Clara shouldered many responsibilities of looking after the house and younger children.
"Clara held it together," Gloria said. Their brothers used to call her the "mean one."
Clara married her husband Glenn Nybroten Aug. 17, 1933, wearing an ankle-length blue velvet dress. She can't remember where they married, but her relatives guess it was possibly in Freeport because "that was the style then." They remained married 63 years until he died in 1996. They spent their life together operating a dairy farm in Adams Township near Argyle.
"She ran the place," Gloria said.
It was at their church, Adams Lutheran, that Clara met her good friend Kathryn Hanson, 91. They went out dancing whenever they could - to the Turner Halls in Madison and Monroe, Monticello House, dancehalls in Freeport, Club 118 in Mount Horeb and the Park Ponderosa Ballroom in McFarland.
Kathryn joined in the small birthday gathering at Pleasant View and reminisced about dancing the waltz and the schottische with her friend.
Clara doesn't make it out to their church anymore, but she's earned the distinction of being the oldest living member, Kathryn said.