Martha Wolgemuth Lyons never thought she would see her 100th birthday, even though her own mother lived to age 99.

With the physique of a 70-year-old, Lyons has had no health problems, though she did develop genetic tremors — not Parkinson's Disease — at age 92.

"She always ate healthily," daughter Pamela Neville said. "It was her nurse's training."

Lyons, who lives at Woodcrest Villa in East Hempfield Township, said she can eat anything, whether she likes it or not. But her favorites are fried chicken legs, ice cream and chocolate fudge cake.

Born on June 15, 1908, in a large stone farmhouse on Wolgemuth Hill near Mount Joy, she was the ninth of Hiram and Martha Wolgemuth's 11 children and the first of two daughters.

The family farmed, growing potatoes and corn that her brothers and father sold in Marietta and Mount Joy.

When she was only 8 or 9 years old, she was given the responsibility of hand-milking the family's 12 to 15 Holstein cows.

"There was one cow that kicked," she said, "and my brothers couldn't milk her, so I had to."

For her first four years of school, Lyons attended Rock Point School and had to walk three miles each way.

She next attended the former Union School through seventh grade, walking two miles each way, and then eighth grade at Mount Joy School, where she had to walk five miles each way.

"Dad took me in inclement weather," she said. Her father had one of the first Ford automobiles.

"The church elders told him he shouldn't have a car," she said of the Ford, which she learned to drive at age 16. "But he didn't see anything wrong with it. He told them he had to use the car for taking his family to church. But it wasn't big enough (for the whole family, so) some had to take a horse and wagon."

Lyons spent her high school years at the former Messiah Academy in Grantham, graduating in 1929.

She then attended Messiah College for a year. One of the first times she flew on a plane was during that year, on a trip to Washington, D.C.

"They took us on a sightseeing trip. The plane was open — you were exposed. It was quite exciting," she said.

Lyons dropped out of college the following year to work in the office of her brothers' business, Wolgemuth Brothers Feed Mill in Florin, to earn money for a year before going on for nursing training at the former St. Joseph Hospital.

"I didn't ask my mother (about becoming a nurse)," Lyons said. "She wanted me to get married."

After becoming a registered nurse, Lyons worked at St. Joseph until 1941, when she married Clarence Lyons, whom she first met while at Messiah College.

Clarence Lyons had lived in Michigan and Canada after college, but the couple met by chance one day on the streets of Lancaster. She then wrote to him to see how she could get in touch with his twin sister, Clara. He wrote back and suggested they get together.

After marrying, Lyons quit nursing at the hospital, but still did some private-duty work. In the early 1960s, she worked at Brethren Village and had some patients at Calvary Homes.

Clarence Lyons was the Lancaster agent for the Pennsylvania Holstein Association and founded the former Red Rose Dairy Herd Improvement Association. He also served as president of the Lancaster County Holstein Breeders Association and later was the founding partner and broker for Kingsway Realty.

While her husband was away buying cattle, Martha Lyons had responsibility for the farm. She remembered going out to call their cows in with one child on her hip and one in a wagon.

In 1953, the family moved to a home on Hess Boulevard, Manheim Township.

In addition to Neville, the couple had a son, Barry Lyons of Strasburg. They also had three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Clarence Lyons died in 1996.

E-mail: lvaningen@lnpnews.com