100 Years and Counting

The Titanic had not yet made its fateful maiden voyage when Dorothy Adams was born in Jordan into a close-knit family of seven sisters and a brother. When she was 5 years old, the family moved to Minneapolis. It was long before television and PlayStation. "I can remember we had a small radio and we had it in a glass bowl on the table so it made the music louder," Dorothy recalled.

She graduated from South High School in 1928, the only one in her family to do so, and went to work at the Franklin Creamery for the next 10 years. When she married Kenneth, she had to leave her job, "because married women weren't allowed to work." The couple settled on Lake Minnetonka at Cook's Bay, where she and Kenneth raised two boys.

Now 100 years old, Dorothy has five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. She lived with a sister before moving to an independent apartment at an assisted living facility in Plymouth. In 1997, she broke a hip and recently had a pacemaker put in, but after a month of rehabilitation, she returned to living on her own. "I had a good life," Dorothy said. "I'm very happy for what I have."