Life lessons from Port Townsend’s newest centenarian

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It was a Tuesday night, 1956, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when Dorothy Louise Gilman’s life changed.

“Nothing happens in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on a Tuesday night,” recalled Gilman, who now lives in Port Townsend and celebrated her 100th birthday on April 6.

But on this particular Tuesday night, when Gilman and a group of her girlfriends were eating at a supper club, something unexpected happened.

“During the war, you were not allowed to be at the nightclub after 9 o’clock if you didn’t have an escort,” Gilman said.

She and her friends were preparing to leave when a group of gentlemen walked in the club.

“The band was tuning up, and one of the men said to me, ‘When the band starts, let’s dance,’” she said.

She looked at the bartender. He nodded his acquiescence to let her stay past 9, and she and the man began to dance.

“Soon I realized that his friends had gone and my friends had gone and it was just the two of us,” she said.

That was how Dorothy Gilman met her husband, Mark Gilman, which changed her life forever.

When Gilman looks back on her life, she sees it was full of love, full of travel and full of fun, despite having lived through some of the hardest times in American history.

Living to 100 puts current events into perspective, she says.

“My advice is to never worry about anything,” Gilman said. “There were lots of times in my life when you could have worried yourself to death.”

Gilman was born in 1920 in Pennsylvania. By the time she was a teenager, the country had plummeted into the Great Depression. Having lost her father when she was young, Gilman and her mother lived with her uncles and grandfather during the Depression.

“We didn’t have any money; we only got one present at Christmas time,” she said. “But the kids never knew that things were rough.”

When she was in her 20s, the world was at war.

“For young girls, it was pretty sad. We didn’t have any boys,” she joked.

The girls, however, found work for themselves. Many of Gilman’s friends went to work in the factories abandoned by men called off to war. She spent her time volunteering and making supplies at home.

The war was coming to an end when Gilman met her husband Mark, who was an Air Force Colonel stationed for a week at the Olmsted Air Force Base. Over the next few months, they would write to each other, and Mark would come to visit for short periods of time until they got married in Ohio where Mark was stationed.

Mark was transferred to Germany for four years after the war.

“It was pretty tremendous,” Dorothy said. “We had a big house in Germany. I worked in the military hospital, did Red Cross work and hospital work. All the wives did.”

Mark was later stationed at the Pentagon. He and Dorothy moved to Falls Church, Virginia, where they lived for 50 years.

“We were very involved in politics there,” she said. “In that area there were hundreds of senators and congressmen. My next door neighbor was a senator from Vermont.”

She was also involved with the Women’s Club of Falls Church, where she volunteered to help homeless and disabled citizens.

She also raised her son, Robin, in Falls Church.

“I love her tenacity,” Robin Gilman said, remembering how busy his mom stayed throughout her life. “She’s laser-focused. Procrastination is not in her vocabulary.”

After Mark’s 30-year career with the Air Force, the pair traveled the world, going on more than 20 cruises.

“We spent so much time together,” she said. “We traveled all over the world together.”

Later in life, when Mark got Alzheimers, Dorothy cared for him until his death in 2009.

After that, her son and daughter-in-law moved with her to Port Townsend, where she spends her days with a view of the sea, surrounded by her grandkids and great-grandkids.

The trick to living to 100 is to enjoy yourself, Gilman said.

“I ate whatever I wanted, I drank whatever I wanted,” she said. “I never dieted. I loved my husband dearly.”

Gilman enjoys listening to mystery and romance novels on tape. She likes learning about her family’s heritage, and she walks to stay healthy.

“I have never been still,” she said. “Do what you want to do, be happy, and you’ll live a long life.”