Submitted photo Edith Green is a little overwhelmed by all her birthday candles when she celebrated her 100th birthday last week at Alpine House in Joseph.

Edith Green, a native of Minnesota who grew up and spent most of her life in California, celebrated her 100th birthday at Alpine House in Joseph last week with 100 candles ablaze on top of a big batch of cupcakes.

“She said, ‘you aren’t going to light all of those are you?’,” laughed her son, Don Green of Joseph, about his mother’s reaction. “We did light all of them and then helped her blow them all out.”

Though Green and his wife Rosemary were the only family members present at the Nov. 19 celebration, the rest of the Green clan, 29 descendants and their spouses, gathered in Joseph in June for a big reunion. “We called it the Edith Green Centennial,” he said.

Edith Green was born Nov. 19, 1902, in Minnesota, and never knew her own mother, who died soon after she was born. She was raised mainly by her aunt, and moved with her family to Long Beach, Calif. She graduated from high school there as valedictorian of her class at age 16. An accomplished violinist, she also was concert mistress of the Long Beach Symphony at that age. After high school, she went to work in a business office.

She met her husband, Harland Green, on a blind date at age 17, and married him two years later. He had deserted the family livery business at age 22 just after World War I and rode the rails across the country from New England to California. He played ragtime piano music at taverns along the way to pay for his meals.

Green said that among things that his parents shared were love of music and love of dancing. The couple had three children, Norman, Don and Dorothy.

Edith Green has been a widow since 1973, and lived with her daughter in California for six years, before moving to Joseph about two years ago.

Green has lost most of her eyesight to macro degeneration and, once an avid reader, now enjoys Talking Books for the Blind. “She is healthy and very happy here,” said Don Green of his centenarian mother.