Wheatland woman celebrates 102 years of a blessed life
Lisa Phelps
Posted 1/29/25
WHEATLAND – An apple a day (don’t forget the popcorn and Mt. Dew), and a bit of salt block during childhood may increase your chances of living a long, healthy life. At least, in a …
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Wheatland woman celebrates 102 years of a blessed life
Posted
“We had good, healthy living – maybe it was from the salt block we licked.””
Edna Probst
“I was my older sister’s shadow, and she was always doing something.””
Edna Probst
“I’m really blessed. So many people have helped me along the way… Isn’t it wonderful when I am 102 and feel as good as I do – I rarely have aches and pains. Jesus has blessed me to be as free as I am.””
Edna Probst
Lisa Phelps
WHEATLAND – An apple a day (don’t forget the popcorn and Mt. Dew), and a bit of salt block during childhood may increase your chances of living a long, healthy life.
At least, in a casual conversation, 102-year-old Wheatland resident Edna Probst, shared her ideas on what has helped her live a long and fairly pain-free life. Granted, she said her parents and siblings lived well into their 90s, and her older sister lived to 106 years old, so it may just run in the family.
Enjoying a pedicure from Kellie Starkson of Polished Day Spa, Edna shared a few memories from her life spanning from the cold of Canada to the wind of Wyoming. She spent her childhood in the vast plains of Alberta, Canada, the sixth of seven children born to Ella May Merner and Emery William Revis.
“We had good, healthy living – maybe it was from the salt block we licked. We had to put a block of salt out for the animals on the reservation where Dad leased grass on the prairie (his farmland was all being farmed, so he needed the pastureland). We preferred to lick after the horses – they were smooth. The cattle were sloppy,” she laughed.
“I was my older sister’s shadow, and she was always doing something,” Edna said, launching into a story of how her sister “saved” a train from wrecking. The railroad ran less than a mile from their house with gates for farmers to open to cross the railroad tracks, but there were no roads. Her sister had heard a safety pin could derail a train, so she decided to get a safety pin and put it on the track then went back to hide in the grass by the gate and wait…and wait. That gave her time to think, and she started feeling guilty of what could happen if the train did derail.
“She hurried over and got the pin off the tracks – then, ZIP! The train went past. She saved the train,” Edna shared with a chuckle over the escapade.
The roads in Canada were not wide and everyone travelled in the ditch in wagons while trying to avoid swampy mud. The girls had to go along the main highway from Calgary to Edmonton on the way to school.
“My sister was driving the spring wagon. She thought she could pull into the ditch and make it. I can still see the mud pattern out there; the horse sank into the mud. The harder the horse tried to get out, the deeper she went. Of course, from the main highway a gentleman stopped. I can still see the shine of his shoes and his silky stockings – he went right over to undo the harness and shaves. Then she was able to get out,” Edna said, shaking her head. “I never forgot his shiny shoes and silky stockings – and he got right in there with all that mud!”
She said when the kids were in school, the area had a predator control program by paying for every gopher tail, crow’s egg, crow’s feet, and magpie that were turned in. The kids had two dogs that helped them earn some coin by finding and catching the gophers.
One time, Edna said her dad wanted to get ahead of the stinkweed issue on the farm, so told her and her sister Florence to fill a wheelbarrow with stinkweed, and he’d buy them bananas. “We filled it up good, and he went to town and got six bananas – three apiece,” Edna said. They were good, but so treasured it took several days for them to eat them up – they were very creative in hiding the remaining bananas in cabbage leaves, in the bran bin, or other places.
“I had a good mother – she never said a derogatory word about anybody,” Edna recalled. In living in the subarctic temperatures of Canada in the early 1900s, Edna said, “Like everywhere else, you dress for the weather. Mom knit the socks, fleece-lined underwear, long sleeves, and Indian moccasins we wore... We had a barometer that hung on the wall, and in the fall, we’d gather around the table with a lamp to order winter clothing from a catalog…I sat there one night combing my mom’s hair. I rolled her hair up in the brush and I went to unroll it and it didn’t work – I still remember sitting on the stairs watching while everybody worked to get the brush out of my mom’s hair.”
Her brother wanted a little adventure at the Chuckwagon races during the Calgary Stampede. He was riding a little black racing mare as part of the chuckwagon team and was too close behind the wagon when the lead horse fell, and the wagon stopped. His horse was going so fast there wasn’t much he could do. “His black mare ran right into the chuckwagon, through it and in front of those horses. Then they were up and ran all the way over my brother…he came home from the hospital in a cast from the neck to below his waste. He made it, though – he’s tough.”
A move to Boulder, Colorado from Canada when Edna was 13 didn’t turn out as planned, either, but it was not so dramatic.
“My mother was Canadian, my dad was not. He was a Yankee and a true Yankee,” Edna said, explaining in Canada children are considered to be the nationality of their father until coming of age. “That’s part of why we came from Canada to the United States in 1936. We were supposed to come down and get grandma to come from Illinois to our sister in Colorado to relocate. Grandma had other ideas – she did not want to leave the hill [where she lived].”
The family changed the plan to go to Grandma in Illinois. “I made good friends there,” she recalled.
She even met her husband, Marian, on second base during a neighborhood baseball game. The couple eloped on the Fourth of July in 1941, later having two children (Wayne and Stanley). In 1957 the family finally moved to Boulder where Edna worked for Humple Reels, making lures, line and other fishing supplies; after two years she was hired by the Colorado University in the supplies department, then later transferred to the accounting office, from which she retired in 1982. She was also the accountant for her husband’s business building low-income housing.
After retirement, the Probst’s moved to Wheatland – a place where the couple had for years greatly enjoyed visiting on trips to the Flying X guest ranch.
Life hasn’t been without some difficulties, including watching her son, Wayne, suffer as a young 23-year-old from the effects of an epiglottis tumor which was affecting his throat and his vision. At the time, Probst said after an exploratory surgery, the doctor told them the danger was too great with the technology available to operate. After that, Probst remembers Wayne suffered with “terrible pain” for years before another doctor said he could safely remove the tumor. The surgery was successful, and he was able to live a full life until he was 64, even with the remaining effect of only being able to smile on one side of his face.
“In spite of the pain, he was always so positive. He never once complained,” she said of Wayne’s positive outlook. “He never said, ‘why me!’ and anyone who came to visit left with better humor than they arrived. He had such a good outlook on life.”
“I’m really blessed,” Edna said multiple times, expressing her heart full of thankfulness for the many friends she has made in Wheatland. “So many people have helped me along the way… Isn’t it wonderful when I am 102 and feel as good as I do – I rarely have aches and pains. Jesus has blessed me to be as free as I am.”
After all, she mowed her own lawn and pushed her own snow until her friends and family encouraged her to stop three or four years ago.
Though her hearing isn’t what it once was, and her sight has been affected by macular degeneration, Edna still lives on her own and regularly attends church. She spends her spare time listening to audiobooks, occasionally eats popcorn and drinks Mt. Dew, and enjoys visits from friends in the community.
Obviously, apples don’t fall far from the tree as the saying goes. Probst’s friends are always touched by her joy and appreciate her upbeat attitude, dry humor, and the many stories she shares. They, too, are changed for the better after a simple visit and hope to continue their weekly routines with Edna for many years to come.
“We adore her,” concluded Pat Mitchell, just one of her many friends.