Colleen Anderson was surprised by a visit from Sgt. Elijah Rathbun of the U.S. Marine Corps during her 100th birthday party on Aug. 3, 2024. Anderson served with the Marines from 1943 to 1945.

On the eve of her 100th birthday, Colleen Anderson waves a hand at the fuss.

“I don’t feel any different that I did yesterday,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think age ever made a difference. If I wanted to do it, I did it.”

Anderson was born Aug. 8, 1924, in Baker City. She grew up in Rye Valley, south of Durkee, where her grandparents settled after traveling west from Illinois.

Seven families lived there, and the children attended a small school with classes up to eighth grade.

She lived with her sister, Beatrice, and her parents, Walter Henry Clough and Melcena Permelia Clough.

While her sister played with dolls, Anderson craved the outdoors.

“We ran the valley barefoot until we were big enough to ride horses,” she said of her cousin, Orlin Cartwright. “He and I ran Rye Valley.”

She also worked, and helped her dad build fence around the 640-acre homestead.

Although she has a century of memories, she especially remembers the Fourth of July festivities in Baker.

“We waited all year long for the Fourth of July to come,” she said. “They had a big parade, dances and a bunch of things.”

When she was 10, she and her baby goat dressed up for the parade.

“My dad made her a little pack out of popsicle sticks, and dressed me like an old prospector,” she said.

Despite the goat’s reluctance to continue halfway through the route, and her dad’s idea to entice the animal with a bottle, Anderson won a cash prize.

“I won ten dollars — I owned the world,” she said with a grin.

Stories about her father elicit a bittersweet smile — he died at 36, when she was 12.

The war

Her family moved into Baker when she was in fourth grade. She attended Baker schools up until her junior year.

World War II was under way.

“By the time I got to my junior year, all the boys had joined,” she said.

She did, too — but not right away.

Her mother moved the family to Portland, where Anderson attended Grant High School. She worked at the Shake Shack, and one day Donelle Dooley, a friend from Baker who also was living in Portland, suggested that they enlist for military service.

At that time, women had several choices, including Women’s Army Corps (WAC), Navy Women’s Reserve (WAVES), Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs).

But Anderson and Dooley wanted to be Marines.

“I just knew they were an elite corps. That’s why we picked them,” she said.

Although she enlisted in 1943, she had to wait for an opening at boot camp in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

“I was a Marine for six months before I went to boot camp,” she said.

After boot camp, the women transferred to the Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico in Virginia.

After learning that she had her driver’s license, Anderson was assigned to motor transport. After training, she was assigned to transport troops to training in the hills, called “boondocks.”

One on of those trips, her rig lost its brakes.

She broke formation to roll up a hill to stop. Then she faced her superior, who was not pleased.

“I said you can throw me in the brig, but I’m not getting back in,” she said.

She didn’t go to the brig.

But she did get reassigned to garbage detail.

Later, Anderson was assigned to the kitchen where she worked for the head cook known as “Slippery Anna.”

“I wanted off garbage detail,” she said.

Eventually she moved to making meals, and remembers the job of making hotcakes for a thousand people. Just when she realized she’d added more butter than the recipe called for, she looked up and met the gaze of a commanding officer.

Her worry quickly eased when the officer said, “I just had to come back and tell you — those are the best pancakes I’ve ever had.”

Although she laughs at antics during her time as Marine, it was still wartime.

“The saddest day, besides the day my father died, was to see the names from Iwo Jima of the dead,” she said, referring to one of the many terrible battles U.S. troops fought in during the Pacific campaign.

Although she hasn’t talked much about her service over the years, Anderson will always be a Marine. And she was pleased when Sgt. Elijah Rathbun of the U.S. Marine Corps attended her birthday party on Aug. 3. Rathbun is the Marine Corps representative for Eastern Oregon.

“I can say it was a first,” he said of the invitation to Anderson’s 100th birthday party.

Rathbun presented her with a K-Bar, a knife he said was “originally a tool for war that turned into a symbol of faithful services for the Marine Corps.”

Anderson said she saw a lot of friends and family at that party, gesturing to the bucket full of cards.

“It was marvelous,” she said.

After the war

Anderson was discharged in 1945. She’s lived in Baker City since the 1960s, after her first husband was transferred here with Oregon State Police.

Later, she married Earl English, who was justice of the peace.

Over the years, she worked at Holman Studio, then at a credit bureau and, after attending beauty school in Boise, she owned M’ Lords and Ladies in the north end of Big V (now D&B Supply) for 20 years.

At age 80, she married Murl Anderson.

“I married the love of my life,” she said.

As she talks, her stories are peppered with mischievous smiles and a laugh or two. She decided, years and years ago, that humor was a large part of her personality.

“I’ll be the family clown,” she said, recalling her thoughts from years ago. “If I can make people laugh, that makes all the difference.”