Elizabeth Cada to celebrate her 102nd birthday today

Weiser resident Elizabeth Cada has lived and experienced a century’s worth of world changes and developments as she turns 102 years-old on Wednesday. Born Lillian Elizabeth Peterson Jan. 20, 1919, Cada moved to Weiser in 1988 and has lived comfortably in a special house near Memorial Park.
 “I’m not living this long on purpose,” said Cada. “It just happened. I’m just surviving, is all.”
 Cada was born in Buffalo, Wyoming as the eighth in a lineup of ten children. Her father, Glen Peterson, worked as a meat cutter and lumber sorter and moved the family several different times following work.
 Cada attended grade school in both Boise and Southern California and graduated from Lapwai High School in 1937. She then attended Lewiston State Normal with help from her brother Clair.
 Two years later she received her teaching certificate specializing in junior high and accepted a job teaching at South Crane School, 24 miles from Midvale.
 “I had never been in a [one-room] school, so it was quite a surprise,” said Cada.
 Cada moved from Lewiston to Crane Creek in August 1939. While there, she boarded with John and Goldie Morrell. Her first evening spent in the area, Cada attended a farewell dance for the previous teacher and met her husband Frank. May 18, 1940, Cada married her husband and after a year of teaching was unable to renew her teaching contract. She then moved into a home with her husband, referred to as “the Upper Place,” and gave birth to her two children in Council.
 The family then moved to a ranch by the South Crane School in 1944.
 Cada returned to teaching during World War II at the Valley View School near Midvale and filled in a position at South Crane for a semester, totaling to 8½ full-term years.
 After two years substitute teaching in Midvale, Cada turned to concentrate on making the ranch prosperous with her husband. Both her children, daughter Fran and son Dan, were raised on the South Crane ranch and graduated from Weiser High School.
 In 1988, Cada and her husband chose to sell their ranch and purchased an all-electric home in Weiser. Electricity did not reach the Cada household until 1948 at their ranch house, adding convenience to the family’s every day lives. Cada said the original stove was heated with coal and transitioned to a half coal, half electric stove after 1948. Electricity in the home also allowed for refrigeration and light and the first appliance the family bought was a toaster.
 “The ranch maybe had three plugs, and this room alone must have 14,” said daughter Fran. “It drove my dad nuts.”
 Throughout her century and two years of living, Cada said the biggest change she has witnessed is the addition and evolution of the telephone. As a child, she remembered having to visit the corner store to use a telephone. In the family home, the first telephone was large and mounted to a wall. Today, phones are an every day appliance carried in consumer’s pockets.
 At 102 years-old, Cada continues to live a healthy life. She is still able to walk short distances on her own with some trouble from her left knee.
 “My mother always said there’s a time to live and a time to die,” said Cada. “And it just isn’t time for me to die. I guess so I can have this sanctuary.”