Turning 104 at the 104

NEW HAMPTON — What better place to celebrate one’s 104th birthday than at the Route 104 Diner?

Evelyn Quinn, a former Intervale resident who spent some time at Golden View Health Care Center in Meredith before moving closer to her youngest son in Goffstown, found the diner to be a perfect place for her birthday celebration.

Not only does the diner offer traditionally “uncommon” fare as part of the Common Man family of restaurants, its central location made it possible for family members and friends from northern and southern New Hampshire to help celebrate the special day.

Evelyn is not your common centenarian, either. Just two months ago, she was dancing up a storm at the Oktoberfest celebration at The Villager Retirement Home in Goffstown. She uses neither a walker nor a cane, and exhibits an exuberant nature, flirting with the men who stopped by to wish her well on Tuesday.

Well-wishers included friends from all over the state, some of them coming from restaurants she used to frequent, others who plowed her driveway when she lived in Intervale. She lived on her own until two years ago, when health issues became a concern to family members living two and a half hours away.

Sitting next to her son, William, at the birthday celebration, she modestly declared, “I’m just an old lady; this is my baby.”

The family held an early birthday party for her last weekend, but for her big day, they chose a location that more people could reach.

William said his mother remains active at the retirement home, which sponsors trips to baseball games and plays, and holds events such as Mardi Gras and the Oktoberfest celebration in its solarium.

Born in the kitchen of her family farmhouse in Barrington, Rhode Island, she grew up raising chickens, and recalls loading a wagon with grain to feed them. When chicks were born, she had to turn the trays on an incubator by hand to make sure the chicks would be warm.

“We had to work,” she recalled, saying she was one of six children in the family. “You learn all the time. There’s always some surprise and you had to figure it out. It doesn’t just drop in your lap.”

She recalls good times, too. She rode to school on a sleigh, played baseball with the boys and hopscotch with the girls when she had a chance. There was a sledding hill that flattened out just before reaching a river, and they had to make sure they stopped in time.

She also recalls riding a bicycle with the brake on the handlebars.

However, in those days, girls couldn’t express themselves, she said. “Girls are more open now,” she said.

Later she had to take care of her mother, who was ill, and it kept her busy to go back and forth between her own house and her mother’s.

She married Clarence Quinn, who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and she recalls having to go to Alabama where it was very hot.

She got a job with the State of Rhode Island’s tourism bureau, and worked there for many years. “I sold the state,” she said. She answered the telephone, handled mail and answered any questions about the state.

“I encouraged them to spend their vacations there,” she said. “I had a couple of guys who would call and say, ‘What are you selling today?’”

Evelyn loved to ride the train, taking it to Providence on a daily basis to get to work.

“They’d blow the whistle when they were coming,” she recalled, “and you had to run fast and hold on. I miss it.”

After she and Clarence retired and moved to Intervale, they had a workhorse and planted corn, but also found time to travel.

“I liked to travel,” she said, noting that among the places she went was a trip to California to visit her sister.

Asked about the biggest change she has observed during her long life, she said, “There are too many cars now.”

However, she was at a loss to explain her longevity. It may have been the hard work on the chicken farm as a child, or her tenure in the tourism office.

“I was very happy with my job,” she said. “All of us were who did it right.”