Olwen Peterson 100th birthday--Rohnert Park Library volunteer

okay. I was born a little earlier than expected in Liverpool, England, where the Beatles air from. We were waiting to be able to come to America, and my father was here and he was the pastor of, uh, Welsh Presbyterian Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And my mother

said she didn't want to go to, um, Pennsylvania was too cold. Eso he heard that San Francisco needed a pastor. So he came to San Francisco. And But this time he had been saving money for us, my brother, mother and I to come to America. When

we came to America in 1927 Lindbergh had crossed the ocean. Although my mother I don't know whether she knew she was doing this on purpose or not when we were on the train, I mean, on the year ship, she said no. Lindbergh had flying across the

ocean. You go out every day and look to see if you can see Lindbergh going across the ocean. So we were running from one side of the ship to the other, and we never did see Well, we found out later. We were sailing in September and

he had already done that in March, so I think she kept us busy. If nothing else, it wasn't very much we could bring to America because of coming on a boat. You don't have a choice of much. Every Christmas we get a book from my grandparent's,

and that was from the old country. And then we just had a wonderful library at 16th and Market McCreary Branch Library, which we could walk to wasn't very far. And that's how I started the library to take out books. And I took that a syriza books

that I liked. It was Mother West, Wind by Burroughs, and every once in a while there'll be one or two books that will come through. It's an old old book, and I knew exactly and clearly library what shelf they were on. Now remember the library in?

She had a lot of here. She pulled it up on top of the head and had a pencil through it because she wrote the date of the book do on every book that left that for that and we didn't talk about that. We just walked up

and handed it the book, and she wrote when it was going to be do and handed back to us. I told Junior High that will tell you a lot. The eighth grade was a challenge. I had 17. 89. I've always said the eighth grade should be

put out into a lovely, lovely past year where they could just do anything they wanted and grow up and find out whether they were Children or we go or what they were. Because in eighth grade you're very confused about where you are. And at least two

days when I was teaching they were. I like teaching because I like to be with young people and they say, You know that one of the things you should do is you get older. You should always try to be with young people. Well, I managed that.

Okay, I'm really glad that I taught and stayed here because I saw the eighth graders boys and girls grow up, get to high school, go on this college, maybe get married, have Children walk into this library with their family. And they're wonderful, outstanding people, very lovable,

unlikable, and I'll say, Oh, you're so and so I had you in the eighth grade, didn't I? And he says How did you remember? I've for gotten the It's great. It's nice to see that they do succeed, even though in the eighth grade you think they'll

never make it, Starting from a little tiny, tiny place with what we thought was a great number of books to be in here. It was just like we passed through all kinds of things to get to this place. We were one place and we were another

place and on each time got just a little bit better, a little bit better. And then we finally are here. I don't know where we'll go from here. Maybe we'll take over the library, but I'm not sure. And you, of course, we have war people working.

Then we used to have. There are all kinds of peoples, and this is what makes it interesting. You meet him all and you try to get along and they try to get along with you. And it's like having something bigger than us. Guidice. Through we everybody

needs something bigger than they are to get through life without getting, uh, overwhelmed with yourself. Do you mind going on record with you are 99 big, big time next year? Yes. Big celebration, I hope on their looks at me. Oh, usually that just before you fall

down, break a leg or something. But so far, no, that is the wood. So far, I've been very healthy. The doctor told the that I must have picked out my parents. I am blue jeans and I have Dr Goodman over here. All we did seem to

do when I go to the doctors just have a good left.