Helen Elizabeth Gorden’s daughter Dolores Varriale remembers that her mother walked everywhere in her younger years.
She never had a car, said Varriale. `She would walk quite a ways to get a bus to go to work.`
When she had to go a bit farther, Gorden got in on an early trend of riding a tricycle.
Varriale remembers her mother riding her three-wheel bike to get groceries and to run other errands.
`She was very active,` said Varriale.
It would appear Gorden’s active lifestyle has paid off.
On Sunday, Feb. 17, Gorden celebrated her 100th birthday, making her one of Rotterdam’s oldest residents.
And though Gorden suffered a stroke several years ago, she still lives on her own.
`She has a hard time hearing and talking, but she’s gradually getting better,` said Varriale, who lives in an apartment across the hall from her mother.
Varriale said she remembers a time when Gorden entertained all of her family with her stories.
Born in Schenectady, Gorden married Ernest Otto Stewart on Feb. 20, 1928, when she was 20 years old.
Varriale recalls one of her mother’s favorite stories about her honeymoon.
`After the wedding, they drove to Pittsfield, Mass., for the honeymoon, but it was freezing cold and she said they didn’t have good windshield wipers and hardly any heat.`
The couple had two children, Delores and Marilyn.
Varriale, now 74, is retired and lives in Rotterdam. Marilyn Stewart, now 77, works as an optician at Wal-Mart in Smyrna Beach, Fla.
Varriale remembers her father as a village handyman who worked odd jobs. For a time, she said, he worked at a Rotterdam tire shop.
But Varriale recalls that her mother was a professional in her own right.
Helen Gorden graduated from Schenectady High School and Spencer Business School.
At Spencer, Stewart learned to use a comptometer, a mechanical adding machine that predated the calculator. The machine used a series of levers, arranged horizontally and vertically.
`Her fingers used to fly when she pushed the buttons on that comptometer,` said Varriale.
It was her skills on the comptometer that got her jobs with Alco and eventually General Electric, where she worked for more than 20 years. Gorden served as payroll clerk at GE until she retired at age 61.
Though her husband died in her early retirement years, Gorden remained busy, tending to her garden and fashioning picture frames, ceramics, Christmas decorations and other crafts that she would often give as gifts.
Perhaps the greatest gift for Gorden, though, was her ability to watch firsthand as more and more branches began to grow on her family tree.
Gorden has four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
On her birthday, Gorden offered a brief statement.
`I didn’t plan on living so long and did nothing special to live 100 years,’ she said. `It just came natural.`
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