Lois Trebbe will turn 100 years old this Saturday, Jan. 14. She attributes her longevity to keeping her mind sharp and her body active.
by Holly Allen
This week marks a major milestone in the life of Lois Trebbe — a full century of living bookended by homes in Jefferson County.
Trebbe, who will turn 100 years old this Saturday, was born Jan. 14, 1923, to Charles and Pearl Clark, Rock Creek. Born in the middle of six siblings, the Clark kids spent their youth on the family farm, doing chores and trekking the mile back and forth from the Unity one-room schoolhouse where the 15 or so students grades one through eight all received schooling from the same teacher.
“I loved English and became quite good at spelling, listening to the teacher give lessons to students much older than myself,” remembered Trebbe. “I enjoyed going to school, and especially loved to pull on my boots of a winter morning and walk to school through the snow.”
Trebbe’s father was a farmer, and later volunteered with the telephone company. Her mother was a homemaker. When the children were small, their farmhouse had neither running water, nor electricity, and the family grew and canned all their own food.
“I remember when Mom got her first Maytag washing machine,” Trebbe recalls. “It was the loudest thing you’ve ever heard, but she was sure proud of it.”
In the early days, Trebbe’s father had a tractor which was pulled by horses. All of the children were responsible for helping with the farm animals; mostly cattle and horses.
The high school at Rock Creek was farther away from the family farm — nearly three miles. Because of this, during the school year, Trebbe took up residence in town. One year, she stayed with relatives. For several years, she lived and worked in the home of the family who ran the area’s telephone switchboard. Before and after school, it fell to Trebbe to serve as switchboard operator as part of her room and board.
“Though folks didn’t visit as much on the phone in those days, still the telephone would ring all hours of the day and night, needing connection. I learned to recall every phone number in the town by memory,” she stated.
Trebbe tried not to pay too much attention to the conversations of her fellow townspeople, however, this sometimes proved difficult as she had to wait for the conversations to end in order to disconnect the calls.
“I heard a lot, but I never shared any of it,” she promises.
After high school, Trebbe moved to Topeka. She had a couple of roommates, and worked in a screen-printing shop. She met her husband, Leonard, at a dance when she was not yet 20 years old.
“I was a timid thing and I didn’t know how to dance, but Leonard sure did,” she said. “So he taught me.”
Leonard worked at a small coal mine near Burlingame. Shortly after the couple began dating, he was taken into the service and sent to the Army base at Fort Smith, Ark. Less than a year after meeting, in 1943, Trebbe hopped on a bus bound for Arkansas and, without telling a soul, even her family, was married to Leonard Trebbe by a justice of the peace. She wore a blue dress. That same year, her new husband was shipped overseas to Germany. He would spend the next 2½ years in Europe.
Upon his return following World War II, the couple moved to Burlingame. Leonard resumed his work in the coal mine, until reports of the dangerous conditions scared his bride and she begged him to find other employment. He began working as a painter at the supply depot — and he remained a painter for the rest of his life.
Together Leonard and Lois had two daughters, Cherry and Connie. Trebbe served her family as a homemaker until their girls were nearly grown, when she went to work as a cook in a nursing home. During that time, the family lived a couple miles outside of Burlingame, and Trebbe felt isolated so far off the main beat. A friend convinced her it was high time she taught herself to drive. She thought the best strategy would be to just get in the car and try to drive. But she didn’t make it far the first go-round.
“I backed out over the yard and over and into the storm cellar,” Trebbe laughed. “And that was the end of that. Leonard decided he may as well teach me after that mess. But in all, I was always a nervous driver.”
Leonard and Lois were married 64 years until his death in 2007 following an illness.
Since 2015, Trebbe has taken up residence with her sole surviving sibling, Freda Roberson, at Valley Falls.
Having awoken early most her life, though Trebbe no longer sets an alarm, her body wakes naturally by 7 a.m. most mornings.
“I usually put my slippers on and plod around quietly, so as not to wake Freda,” Trebbe laughs. “She’s not a morning person.”
The sisters spend their days together, taking care of and keeping one another company.
“I love to work puzzles, and I’ve just taken up reading,” said Trebbe. “It keeps my mind active. And I think it’s important to keep moving, so we walk whenever we can. It does a person good.”
They attend Methodist church services at Valley Falls each Sunday. They go out to eat when they can, and have recently started getting together with a card group. Trebbe reports she won a game of Uno just last week.
Her daughters, Cherry and Connie, and Connie’s husband, Taylor, have taken her on several trips in recent years — and Trebbe boarded her very first plane in her 90s, to visit her grandson in California. Her daughters say Trebbe was always content to stay at home while she was tending her family, but since the death of her husband, she wants to see and do it all. At (nearly) 100 years of age, Trebbe has no medical issues and takes no medications.
On the occasion of her 100th birthday this coming Saturday, a party in Trebbe’s honor will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Kendall Bank community room, 406 Broadway, Valley Falls. All are welcome to attend.
When asked for advice on living a good, long life, Trebbe refuses to offer any.
“I don’t give advice, and there’s plenty I would have changed about my own life. I’ve never really felt myself aging until recently. I’ve always just been the same person inside I always was,” Trebbe stated. “But recently — I don’t know — 99 sounds old to me. I’m looking forward to being 100. That sounds like a big step, and a new adventure.”