90 And Still Rolling

Alpha Weirick rolls her 14-pound brown, marble-swirled Brunswick bowling ball down the lane and picks up the spare. She slaps high-five with teammates.

It is Wednesday morning, and Alpha Weirick is where you would find her every Wednesday morning. She is at Gilliam Bowling Lanes with fellow members of the Wednesday Morning Ladies Koffee Klatch League.

Weirick is dressed in a pink shirt, light blue pants and tan shoes, and this 90-year-old lady likes high-fiving after strikes and converted spares. Her bowling average is 146, picked-up spares and strikes are commonplace, and this game, she finishes above her average with a 150.

Weirick is the oldest bowler - male or female - in Kosciusko County. "By far," lane owner Deb Gilliam says.

"What you need to know about Alpha," a bowling partner chimes in, "is that she's amazing."

Says a middle-aged woman in the Wednesday league: "She's been an inspiration to all of us. We grumble about aches and pains, and we're not close to her age."

"She's very independent," 83-year-old Edna Evers, Weirick's close friend and bowling teammate, says.

Weirick lives in a seven-room house. She drives a 1995 Buick Regal, enjoys hopping on her riding lawn mower to trim the grass during the spring and summer, feels no arthritis in her hands and has little use for doctors.

"I've never doctored very much in my life," she says. "I hack it out myself. I'm not much on going to doctors."

OK, so she recently needed a doctor on March 8 to perform cataract surgery on her eyes. One week later, she bowled a 206.

Alpha Weirick and bowling became a pair 75 years ago. Weirick, born in 1911, moved to Winona Lake in 1919. Her brother set the pins at a bowling alley in Winona Lake.

"It was 10 cents a game," Weirick says. "I learned to bowl then."

She started at age 14 and has continued to bowl since.

Was it considered proper in 1925 for a 14-year-old female to be bowling?

"I don't know," she says. "I was just a kid, I never thought about it. It was something I liked to do."

When asked her best score ever, Weirick reaches into her purse and digs out her pocketbook. She carefully pulls out three folded newspaper clippings. The clippings, all from the last few years, come from the "Remember When" page of the Times-Union newspaper. Her best score was a 268, noted in the 50 years ago section of a 1998 "Remember When." The clipping reads that at the time, her score was one of the best ever rolled by a female in Kosciusko County.

The only thing is, Weirick's name is spelled "Wedrick" in the newspaper clipping, and it turns out it's not a misprint. Her first husband was William Wedrick. After he died in 1957, she stayed single until 1979, when she married her second husband, Marvin Weirick. Remarriage changed her last name by only one letter.

"You can refer to me as Alpha Wedrick-Weirick if you want to," she says, and then her time to bowl has arrived, so she leaves her seat near the ball return, grabs her brown Brunswick and rolls it down the lane.

The brown Brunswick ball she uses is the same ball she used in 1941, the year William Wedrick purchased it for her.

"I have a 16-pounder at home," she says after picking up another spare, "but I don't use that anymore. I quit using that three years ago."

Even when she rolled scores like 268, Weirick's bowling happened just one day a week, on Thursdays.

The number of days a week has stayed the same. All that has changed is the day.

"I just bowl once a week," she says. "I don't practice. I bowl three games every Wednesday morning. That's it."

Weirick uses spot technique.

"I spot bowl," she says. "I pick a spot on the alley and bowl over that spot."

The 75-year bowler mentions several changes throughout her career.

"Now they have automatic pin-setters, automatic scorers, plastic alleys, different types of balls for different types of alleys," she says.

Weirick has bowled with good friend Evers for the last 20 years. To Evers, it's not the bowling that makes Weirick stand out for a 90-year-old.

It's her mind.

"I don't have any memory left," she says. "If I want to know anything, I call Alpha."

Weirick starts talking about Dec. 7, 1941.

"We were bowling December 7th when Pearl Harbor started," she says. "We were bowling mixed doubles above Sharp's Hardware on December 7th. It was on Center Street, just west of National City Bank."

As she talks about her background and mentions that she moved to Winona Lake in 1919, the quick-witted Weirick stops herself, slaps her knee and cackles.

"This is starting to sound like an obituary," she cracks as the other ladies chuckle with her.

Weirick has three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. When not bowling, Weirick spends time crocheting, cooking, playing cards and taking care of her lawn.

She considered ending her bowling career last year but decided against it.

"It's good exercise," she says. "Edna said she wouldn't bowl unless I did, and that's why I keep on.

"Who knows how long I'll do it. I guess as long as the good Lord is willing."

"I think that's why she's lived so long," Evers says. "She enjoys life and puts everything into it."

To Alpha Weirick, 90 is only a number.

"Sometimes I don't feel any older than I did when I was 50," she says. "Other times, I feel older. Age is a frame of mind. If you think you're old, you are."