LAKEPORT — Last Saturday Anne Somerville of Lakeport celebrated a century of life surrounded by 150 family members at the Lake County Fairgrounds.
Born a rebel, in her youth, as the only girl sibling, she could outride and outshoot the men in her family.
She still tends her own garden and enjoys being outdoors.
Several musicians in the family played music at the party of the century and sang to her.
She was presented with a portrait of herself at age 16, from a photo that was taken in 1927, drawn by one of her grandchildren.
Somerville was born to George Harmon Kelsey and Martha Lee Kelsey on Dec. 20, 1911, in Montecello, Wayne County, Kentucky.
They owned a farm in Kentucky along the Cumberland River, which was lost during the Great Depression. They moved to California in the early 1940s. Somerville was a cook for a large logging operation in Bryceland in the 1950s. She then operated her own restaurant in the 1960s. She retired as U.S. Postmaster in Miranda in the 1970s.
Making full use of her free time, she traveled the country and then the world. Somerville has six children, 38 grandchildren (including eight step-grandchildren), 80.5 great grandchildren (one in the oven), 38 great-great grandchildren and three great-great-great-grandchildren.
