As Wilma Ellington begins another lap around the sun, she says she’s feeling pretty good having completed her 104th year on planet earth where she now counts over one hundred, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren and three great great great grandchildren, 70% of whom live in Alaska, “I’d like to be able to get around a little more so I could garden and fix Dave’s breakfast like I always use to, but I can’t complain,” she said surrounded by seven generations of family at her birthday celebration September 7th at her daughter Donna and Dave Schmidt’s home in Soldotna.

Wilma was the youngest of a family of five that lived in Missouri when she was born, “I was the baby and became ill when I was five years old and had to go to the hospital so my sister had to quit school to take care of me because my mom had passed away. My dad remarried after a year and she became my mother and was so wonderful to me that I grew up with her feeling and thinking that she was my own mother because she loved me like I was and I felt for her just as if she was my mom because my mother died when I was so young,”

Grandma Ellington’s recollection of transportation was horse and buggy, “The first car I ever saw was a Model T Ford that my dad went all the way to Denver to buy and then sold out everything in Missouri and moved us all to Denver,” recalled Wilma, “Of course I remember my first beau, he drove a 1929 Dodge and we went courting in that car,” she laughed.

When her daughter married Dave Schmidt who was originally from Colorado before coming the Alaska to teach music at Soldotna Middle School, Grandma Ellington became a fervent Denver Bronco fan and was elated when they made it to another Super Bowl last year but then disappointed at the results of the big game, “It was okay because we have Seahawk fans in our family too, but I’m just not sure how they will do this year. Now I hear and hope that they will really do good, but I really don’t know but I’ll be watching every game I do know that and hoping they win them all,” said Grandma Ellington, beloved by so many and cheering on her Broncos to another Super Bowl at 104 years strong.