That was some 80 years ago. Stark was 12 years old at the time.

An active 93 today, she’s been swimming ever since.

She swam in the frigid Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine as a girl, in the Mediterranean Ocean with her family as a student, off the shores of Okra Coke Island in North Carolina, in the calm waters of Lake Washington with her children, in the swift waters of Icicle River in the Cascades, and in the cool alpine Enchantment Lakes.

And even in Discovery Bay.

The petite and trim Stark slips on a royal blue swimsuit at least twice a week and plunges into an aquarobics class in the tepid water at the City of Port Townsend Municipal Pool at Mountain View. It’s the first time she’s ever taken swimming lessons.

While her brothers’ absence that summer long ago led her to start swimming in the ocean when she was 12, it was a bout with shingles several years ago that pushed her back into the pool.

“One of the things that started me [swimming] this last time is I had had a bout with shingles and my right arm was paralyzed,” she said. “I was exercising at the hospital, but it was painful. In the water, it isn’t painful. It’s been just marvelous.

“The therapeutic value of what I’m doing, it really means a lot to me and others,” she said.

Nancy Speser, who has been teaching aquarobics for 20 years at the city pool, says Stark is an inspiration.

“Look at her,” said Speser before a class begins. “She’s in great shape.

“My inspiration is Peg, that when I’m 93 I can look like her and do what she’s able to do,” said Speser. “It’s very unusual for someone her age to be doing what she’s doing.”

All in stride

On a dark and windy winter morning last week, Stark had already taken a Dial-A-Ride bus to the pool and was in her swimsuit at 8 a.m., ready to shower, sign in and exercise. As she walked past several classmates in the locker room, she asked them if they wouldn’t mind sharing their ages. She wasn’t sure if she really was oldest in the class. Both women were in their 80s, so Stark accepted the honor of being proclaimed oldest.

Accepting a compliment about her slim figure, Stark admitted her doctor had told her to put on a little weight.

“I could spare you 20 pounds,” one woman joked.

As Stark turned, held on to her walker and rolled briskly past the younger women, one commented that Stark also was admired for her swimwear.

“She always matches,” the woman said, noting that Stark’s swimsuit matched her aquashoes. Stark seemed oblivious to compliments and intent on enjoying whatever good that life has to offer.

Maine-borne

Stark has lived a long and interesting life, both in and out of the water.

Born in Corea, Maine, a lobster town, as she calls it, she especially enjoyed that one summer long ago when her brothers weren’t around.

Her family lived in Pennsylvania and was well off. They took her to live in Europe for several years, and she attended school one year in Switzerland. She also spent time in France and remembers swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Back in the United States, still a young woman, she met her husband, Bill Stark, in Langhorne, Pa., on a double date arranged by her best friend. When the friend told him who his date was, he reportedly said, “Oh, you mean that scrubby little girl who plays football.”

Indeed, as a little girl growing up with two younger brothers and two older brothers, she not only played football but also was nicknamed Oliver for several years.

“We saw Jackie Coogan in an ‘Oliver Twist’ movie and my hair was just like Twist, so I was Oliver for several years,” she said.

Between the time that she was dubbed Oliver and Bill went off to college, the little girl grew up. Her mother made her stop playing football “because I got knocked out too often.”

By the time she met her husband, she had decided to be a girl and go “pink,” as she puts it.

“When we met I changed his mind. We dated and wrote for five years,” she said of the two of them hitting it off. He didn’t swim but did love to fly-fish, and they shared a love for the outdoors.

“My husband wanted to live on the West Coast, so we finally came west in 1941 with two children,” she said. “He was an aeronautical engineer and had gone to MIT in Boston.”

When they came to Seattle, Boeing “snapped him up” as an engineer. After her children were older, she began working in adult education and at a co-op preschool in the Kirkland School District. When Boeing started to focus on offense-oriented military contracts in the 1970s, Bill wanted out, she said. He disapproved of offense weaponry.

The couple had been with the Mountaineers since 1952, so heading for the mountains felt right. The two owned Camp Adventure Chalet and Scottish Lakes Nomad Camp between Stevens Pass and Leavenworth.

“Skiing. That’s the thing we’re both known for,” she said. “We did a great deal of hiking, and we worked very hard to make the Enchantment Lakes area wilderness.” The area, reached by hiking up Icicle Creek just west of Leavenworth, is an alpine heaven.

Of course, she did take time to swim in those “very cold” mountain lakes.

But her favorite place to swim?

“Salt water is easier,” she said, as if the memories were flooding back to that summer long ago in warmer times.