CENTENNIAL MARINE

Katie Riddle has been partyin’ hard for the last week.

First, the neighbors threw a birthday bash. Then it was Katie’s friends at the First Baptist Church. Next, her Bridge Club — that one was at the Community Center. Finally, members of her family gathered at her home.

I guess you could say Katie has earned it. You only turn 100 once.

Her house is full of birthday cards, flowers and other tributes. She’s had plenty of time to make a lot of friends over the last 100 years.

“I don’t know why, but I had all these parties,” says Katie, with a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t feel 100.”

At one of the gatherings, three members of the Marine Corps hand-delivered a document that certifies Corporal Katie Riddle as an official Centennial Marine. But, more on that later.

At 100, Katie is still going strong. She lives in the home she and her husband Jim built back in the late 1980’s when they retired to Wimberley. She still drives. Her daughters check in on her often. She always has a cell phone nearby “in case something happens.”

“I can still drive for two more years,” she says proudly. “I passed the test.”

Born in Germany

Katie was born Mary Katherine Maas on Sept. 22, 1921 in Coblenz, a German city on the banks of the Rhine River. (In 1926, the spelling of the city was changed to Koblenz.)

Her father, Raymond Maas, was a soldier stationed in Germany during World War I when he met and married her German mother, Margaret.

“My dad really took a shine to her. I had a beautiful mother,” remembers Katie.

Raymond was born in Texas so when his tour of duty was up, the family moved to Dallas. Katie was only six months old. Mother Margaret learned to speak English. Father Raymond got a job. Katie went to school, started working. Katie had two brothers, both now deceased, who lived into their 80’s.

The family survived the Great Depression.

As with most members of the “Greatest Generation,” the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a defining moment in her life. “For people of my age, we couldn’t believe what happened at Pearl Harbor,” she says.

Once the United States declared war on Japan, Katie — like hundreds of thousands of other Americans — enlisted. At age 20, she found herself in a Marines uniform. After basic training at Camp Lejeune, N.C., she was stationed at the training facility in San Diego where she helped make ID tags and later joined the payroll department.

“The men didn’t like the women coming in,” says Katie, “because we’d relieve them for duty in the South Pacific.”

She learned to fire a rifle and pistol at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, and, because of Japanese military activity off the West Coast, kept a weapon in her desk at the payroll office.

As the war was winding down, she met her future husband, Jim, who had just returned after 33 months and three bloody battles in the South Pacific.

Jim had enlisted in the Marines as a senior in high school. Katie ended up serving 22 months in the Marines Reserves; Jim was in for 20 years and retired as a master gunnery sergeant. After World War II, Jim went to school to study electrical engineering, but was called back to service during the Korean War.

They moved from station to station and both of Katie’s daughters, Kathy and Linda, were born in California.

After Jim retired from the Marines, the family moved back to Texas and he worked in communications and electronics. Once the girls were in school, Katie returned to college and got a teaching degree. “I’m an Aggie. Proud of it. I don’t like that other one. If you are from UT I apologize,” she tells her interviewer.

The family lived in the Corpus Christi area where Jim worked for the federal government and Katie taught school.

The couple retired to Wimberley in 1988.

“Don’t you just love it here?” asks Katie. “What a wonderful place to live.”

Jim, who served as the president of the Wimberley Lions Club and was involved in numerous other community activities, passed away in 2000 at age 78. “Jim only had 12 years here,” Katie says. “Mean old me, I’m still here.”

Rare, Indeed

Reaching the century mark puts you in an elite club. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average American can expect to live 77.5 years. Thanks to COVID-19 and the recent plague of drug overdoses among the young, life expectancy actually dropped 1.5 years in 2020. Women can expect to live, on average, 5.7 years longer than men.

The Census Bureau reports that “centenarians,” or people more than 100 years old, make up less than one percent of the U.S. population. The odds are a lot better if you are female. Women make up almost 83 percent of that number. There are more 100-yearolds in the Midwest and Northeast and fewer in the South and West.

Internationally, Japan has the highest rate of centenarians including Kane Tanaka, the world’s oldest woman at 117, reports the World Economic Forum.

Katie has seen a lot of changes over the last century. When she was born in 1921, Warren Harding was president, Franklin Roosevelt came down with crippling polio, the first World Series game was broadcast over the radio, and White Castle established the first fast-food chain in Wichita, Kan.

Actress Lana Turner was born in 1921 as was Hollywood tough guy Charles Bronson. Gunfighter Bat Masterson died that year and master of disguises Lon Chaney, cowboy Hoot Gibson, comic Buster Keaton, and heartthrob Rudolph Valentino all released movies.

Katie attributes much of her longevity to her faith. “I love the Lord with all my heart,” she says.

Over the years she has traveled the world — Antarctica is the only continent she has not visited — on religious missions. She has a map in her living room with dozens of pins marking where she has visited. She has been to China five times, Africa, South America, you name it. Her experiences overseas have molded her life, she says.

Katie has “15 or so grandchildren” and “lots” of great and great-great grandkids. “I’m 100 years old, I can’t remember everything,” she points out.

Katie has never smoked and doesn’t drink alcohol. “I don’t mind people drinking as long as they can handle it,” she says.

She’s fiercely independent. When a friend drops by to offer a ride to a funeral, Katie politely rejects it, then, afterwards, says: “I have my own driver’s license, you know.”

When her daughters suggested it might be time to move to an assisted-living facility, she nixed that idea as well. “I won that battle,” she says with a wink.

Katie has won her share of battles over the last 100 years.