PLAINFIELD, IL — At 104 years old, Genevieve Burckhardt is as spry as ever.
The Plainfield resident, who goes by Jean for short, celebrated her latest birthday Tuesday surrounded by friends and family. She had a “phenomenal time,” her son-in-law Ray Montez told Patch.
“Grandma got home at 930 p.m. and was totally exhausted,” he said. “On the way home she [joked], ‘Ray, I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive you for that.'”
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Just before making her grand entrance at her party, Burckhardt spoke to Patch about her family, day-to-day activities and secret to a long and happy life.
That secret? Burckhardt, in fact, has two.
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“One is the fact I have been blessed by my God, and the second one is that I eat a banana every day of my life,” she said. “The bananas have a lot of potassium, so I’m doing something right. Like I said with my blessings, I feel very, very good.”
Besides having arthritis, which requires her to use a walker and is “the only thing I would ever complain about,” Burckhardt said she’s “very well put together.”
“Life goes on, and you just take it one day at a time,” she said.
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She may have joined the centennial club four years ago, but she continues to live on her own at Plainfield’s retirement community, Carillon.
Burckhardt spends her days watching — or, rather, listening to, since her vision is fading, she said — TV and having dinner with her family, who often comes over in the evenings.
Her immediate family consists of her two daughters, four grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.
“I count my blessings,” Burckhardt said. “That keeps me going.”
Born on May 8, 1919, a year before women were granted the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, Burckhardt lived through countless historical moments, including both world wars, the Great Depression, the first moon landing and several pandemics.
Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she journeyed to Detroit when she turned 18, in 1937, in search of work, eventually finding it at factories. It’s in the city where she met her husband, Stanley, and they married in 1941. He served in World War II, returning in 1945, two years before their first daughter, Nancy, was born. In 1949, their second child, Carol, was born.
From there, she became the “typical all-American housewife raising her two daughters. It’s the typical 1950s family,” Montez said.
Burckhardt and her family relocated to Illinois in 1995, and she’s lived in the state ever since.
“Most men I know complain about their mothers-in-law but God blessed me with the greatest mother-in-law in the world,” said Montez, who has been married to Burckhardt’s eldest daughter for 43 years. “I told my wife at the party, I’d remarry you again just to have Jean as my mother-in-law again.”
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