She declined to have her picture taken and, since it was her birthday, her request was granted.

It wasn't just any old birthday either. Ruth Carlin turned 100 yesterday.

Born to Israel and Sarah Brookins Ohmart of Wabash County on Dec 16, 1900, Ruth is the youngest of six siblings and the oldest survivor of her generation. She lives independently on Main Street in Warsaw and doesn't venture out in weather like this.

She suggests that "we are in for it." And she ought to know, having been through a couple of snowbound winters in the past.

"We had a bad winter in '78 and '79," she said. "And one in '29 and '30, the year we moved to Warsaw and lived in an apartment."

The "we" includes her husband, L.M. "Pete" Carlin, who died in 1982. They were married for 53 years. In 1932 they moved to the Main Street residence and she has lived there ever since.

At the time theirs was the last house on Main Street. They installed indoor plumbing before moving in as the house had sat empty for years.

To the east and north was farmland owned by the Beyers brothers of Winona Lake.

Pete owned and operated a service station on Center Street.

"Way back when the mail was delivered twice a day," she said. "Milk was delivered in a glass bottle on the front steps and it would rise up in the wintertime."

A 1919 graduate of Laketon High School, she was a teacher for 13 years in the Wabash and Kosciusko county school systems, teaching third- and fourth-graders mostly and fifth- and sixth-graders for a couple of years.

She is circumspect in her opinions of schools today. "I'm used to it, it's just so different than my experience."

She helped out in the service station for a while before the couple established Carlin Automatic Music, servicing jukeboxes and shuffleboards in the region for the next 30 years.

They traveled all around the lake area, and as far south as North Manchester, servicing the machines that played the latest 45s.

Carlin was a fan of rock 'n' roll although, prior to the 1960s, most of the music was patriotic in nature with some Western and "hillbilly" thrown in.

She takes the advances of modern technology in stride.

She has a clear memory of classes being dismissed at Laketon one day, when she was a student, so everyone could watch an airplane fly along the railroad.

"Now that was way back when," she said.

Another event that strikes her as significant was the sinking of the Titanic when she was 12 years old. She even bought a book on the subject from a traveling book salesman.

Way back when she was growing up in rural Wabash County, "hucksters" brought groceries - bulk goods, canned goods and stick candy - by horse-drawn wagon to the countryside, visiting the Ohmart farm every Wednesday afternoon.

"We kids would watch for that huckster wagon to come, way back when. We looked forward to it."

First cars were a novelty.

"We wondered what made it work, why it would move. It was quite a mystery in those days," she said.

"I went everywhere in a horse-drawn carriage or buggy even while I was teaching for the first two years. Then I finally bought a Ford touring car."

As a young woman she traveled by street car from Warsaw to Winona Lake, to attend church conventions and to hear various evangelists, including Billy Sunday, preach to the crowds that gathered there.

Members of the First Brethren Church visit her on a regular basis.

Pete and Ruth Carlin were childless but there are nephews and nieces nearby who check on her all the time, along with neighbors and Mobile Meals volunteers.

She's seen the area grow and develop. Progress, she calls it, an improvement.

Who is her favorite president?

"Why that would have to be George W. Bush now, wouldn't it?" she laughs, angling off any political opinion except to say, "We've had enough of Clinton and Clintonism."

With a full head of steel gray hair and sharp clear eyes, she doesn't look a day over 85. She uses eyeglasses only for reading fine print, thanks to a cataract removal operation years ago. Her hearing is excellent and her posture erect.

She uses a walker for balance to get around, an aid used since an unfortunate fall three years ago.

She spends her days taking life easy, keeping up on current events through the newspaper, watching television news and taking in a college football game now and then.

"I've lived to be the oldest and I wonder why, I wonder how," she said. "I guess I've been blessed and I'm thankful for many blessings."

Although her parents, brothers and sister are gone and the landscape around her changes regularly, Ruth Carlin lives in the present.

The last 100 years?

That was all way back when. [[In-content Ad]]