It wasn’t until the years really began stacking up that Lydia Westover thought anything about her age, and after celebrating her 105th birthday Aug. 1, she isn’t sure why she’s still here, she said.

Born in 1909, Westover easily can recall childhood memories of walking 2 miles one-way to school or riding her horse. During the winter her dad often would drop her and her siblings off at school via a horse-drawn sleigh.

“When I was younger I lived on a farm,” Westover said. “We had chickens, cows, pigs, you know the usual things. We didn’t have power, but we just made do with what we had.”

Westover’s parents, Martin and Margaret Bepple, were some of the first settlers of Quincy in central Washington, where she was born and raised. Westover’s family farmed at Quincy, but her father often worked away from home depending on the season and what was being harvested, such as apples in the fall for example.

Westover was one of 10 siblings, including five boys and five girls. Following the deaths of three older sisters during the 1918 influenza outbreak, Westover’s formal schooling ended as she stayed home to help her mother. At age 16 she began her first real job working at a restaurant in a hotel in Quincy.

“The shifts were 10 hours a day and you were paid $75 a month,” Westover said.

Eventually Westover found herself living in Portland, Ore., during World War II, working the graveyard shift at Willamette Iron and Steel doing the payroll for more than 2,000 employees. By the late 1940s Westover, accompanied by her husband Quinn, returned to Washington and the dry side of the mountains to her hometown of Quincy.

Throughout the past century, Westover always stayed busy. She worked at the Grant County Public Utilities District for 23 of those years and modeled dresses in a “fancy dress shop” at a renown department store called The Crescent in Spokane for another 18 years, Westover said.

“My weakness is clothes,” West-over said. “I’ve always liked fashion.”

Despite Westover’s strong work ethic and devotion to her career, she still found time to be involved in countless community organizations and raise a family. Whether it was fundraising for the American Cancer Society, spearheading the Business of Professional Women’s Club or volunteering at the hospital, Westover always was engaged with her community.

In 1972, Westover became Washington’s first female president of a chamber of commerce at Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce.

“That was during women’s liberation,” Westover said. “Women just didn’t do things like that back then.”

After the countless years of both work and volunteer efforts, Westover and her husband retired, bought a fifth wheel and traveled to different places to winter each year. On the night before their 39th wedding anniversary her husband died.

Westover now has outlived not only her husband, but all her siblings as well and although she misses her family, it is something you get used to and you just have to keep going, she said. Westover moved to Sequim from Wenatchee 11 years ago to be near her son, Leroy and his family.

Being 105 years old may mean outliving many loved ones, but it also allows Westover to enjoy watching her eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and even one great-great grandson grow-up. Westover even maintains a Facebook page to keep in touch with her family.

Given her busy lifestyle, West-over said she never really had time for hobbies, nor does she now since she began writing a book about two or three years ago she anticipates titling, “My First 100 Years,” Westover said.

She hasn’t tried to answer why she has lived as long as she has, but when people ask her how she has done it, she simply tells them to “just keep breathing,” she said with a slight shrug and a smile.

Reach Alana Linderoth at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.