By Barbara Ward

When you are “over the hill,” doesn’t it make you feel good when you meet someone who considers you a youngster? This is what happens when you meet 106-year-old Retta Vela of Montrose.

Vela was born in the panhandle of Texas, in Ochiltree County, on September 19, 1905. As a youngster, her family moved to Clayton, New Mexico. Like many at the time, she started school in a one-room schoolhouse. Not long after she started, her family moved to the Delta area, where she enjoyed playing baseball, basketball and attending community dances. She also learned how to cook and clean house.

Her family moved to Eckert, where she graduated from high school in 1925 with a class of two. She was two years late graduating because of a flu epidemic that hit during that era.

Vela married soon after high school. She and her husband, Francis, bought a ranch in Eckert, which was homesteaded by Vela’s grandfather. It was awarded the Colorado Centennial Farms award in 1999, celebrating its 100th year and being a fifth generation ranch. Life was not always easy on a ranch. The work was hard, the income wasn’t always the best and the unpredictable Colorado weather was always a factor.

The first car she remembered was her father’s Model T Ford.

“I got in it and took off with him,” Vela recalled.

Vela drove until she was 96 years old.

In 1933, Vela and her family moved to Telluride, where she worked as a meteorological clerk, measuring the percentage of mineral in ore for the mines. She also worked part-time for the Western Colorado Power Company, selling tickets for the Nugget Theatre and the Sheridan Opera House.

You can’t visit with Vela without going away uplifted and inspired. Vela said she never dreamed she would be around at age 106.

“I never thought about it,” Vela said. “I was always too busy.”

According to Vela, when you live for over a century, you see a lot of changes in the world. Some positive changes she mentioned are social security, that there are more opportunities for success, and that education is widely available. Vela said if she lived her life over again, the only thing she would do differently is go to college.

The one change she said that is now often absent, is the sense of community.

“There is too much lack of respect for others and the loss of connection to our neighbors,” Vela said.

Her advice to her children, her daughter Sherry and son Jack, and to present and future generations is to behave, eat and sleep well, and enjoy life.

For over a century, Vela is still full of life, happy, always learning, sweet and witty. She is proof that old age does not mean life stops. What really counts is how you lived, what you did, and the experiences you had and learned from.