100-year-old Yachats resident’s advice for loving life? Walk on the beach. Work hard. Be kind.

 

By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews

YACHATS — In 1925, the Roaring 20s were in full swing across America. Mount Rushmore in South Dakota was dedicated. In London, the first television picture was generated. And Carol J. (Crinklaw) Dorning of Yachats was born in Montesano, Wash.

One hundred years later, the centenarian looks back on her life with gratitude and a positive attitude.

“I never dreamed I’d live to be 100,” Dorning said, just before her official big birthday and party Thursday. “I love living here in Yachats. I’ve loved every minute of it and I’m so grateful.”

Closely watched over and aided by neighbors at the top of their road — Dorning Street — the self-described “Old Lady of the Hill” still lives independently in the home she and her late husband bought around 1951.

She volunteered for years with Meals on Wheels in Waldport and now gets meals from the group delivered three times a week. She still chops wood when no one is looking (“I’m not supposed to, but I love it,” she confesses) and reads mystery books avidly.

Although Dorning stopped driving a few years ago, she still gets to visit the Pacific Ocean every day through a big picture window. And she treasures memories of walking on the beach collecting floats and agates.

“The kids would pick up glass floats that came over the ocean from Japan,” she recalled of her shore adventures with her daughter Lori, who died in 2021, and son, Chris, who now lives in Texas. “And I used to love hunting agates, too.”

Another memory is frequenting a dance hall that used to sit on the west side of U.S. Highway 101 across from Vingie Street. “My husband Sam didn’t dance, but I did. He’d visit with friends, and I’d dance with anyone who asked me.”

The secret to 100 years

There’s isn’t a strong legacy of longevity for Dorning. Her father died at age 79; her mother at 72. So what’s the secret of reaching her milestone birthday?

For Dorning it’s simple: “Walking on the beach. Not only is walking good for you, but on the beach you breathe deeper … the air is so fresh.”

Her home sits at the top of a fairly steep hill just north of Yachats, but “Walking up that hill was no problem after walking on the beach. It gave me energy. It’s the best thing you can do.”

While walking the beach is no longer feasible, she does try to maintain healthy habits, eating sensibly and indulging in the occasional pumpkin pie or sugar cookie. But it’s the people around her, a close-knit group of neighbors who watch over her and help her, that occupies her active mind.

“I have never had anybody be as good to me as these two are,” Dorning said, referring to Christy La Roche, who alerted YachatsNews to the milestone birthday, and her husband, Gary. The La Roches are two of the neighbors who watch out for Dorning and help her stay in her home.

Home for her formative years was a small inland Washington town, where she married Carson Strong. “We were kind of high school sweethearts,” she said. The marriage lasted 10 years. After that, she met and married Sam Dorning, and the pair came to the Oregon coast looking for work. He was in the logging business, she was a homemaker.

“I knew I was home”

“When we passed through Yachats, I thought, ‘It’s so beautiful here; I wouldn’t mind living here’.” Sam Dorning got a job in Waldport, and the pair rented a home at the foot of what is now Dorning Street. They later jumped at the chance to buy a house on an acre of land at the top of the hill.

“This feeling washed over me; I knew I was home,” she said.

Why does the street share their name? Because a former fire chief decided it should.

“The streets didn’t use to be named,” Dorning said. But when the chief started naming streets to help firefighters find emergencies, he decided to give it the moniker it has today.

Sam Dorning died in 1997. But due to his influence, Carol Dorning was a licensed ham radio operator until just a few years ago. She also enjoyed sewing clothes and tending flowers.

These days, she grows mostly garlic in the terra cotta pots that line an indoor porch, reads her mysteries with a TV on in the background and seems to naturally gravitate toward maintaining a positive attitude.

“Why not?” she asked rhetorically.

What makes her the happiest? “Friends. If there’s anything I’d like other people to know about me, it’s that I love living here and I love my neighbors.”

After 100 years, Carol Dorning has evolved a deceptively simple philosophy of life: “Have a good one.” Then adding “Don’t get in trouble. Work hard. Be kind.”

For a woman with that philosophy, “One hundred years doesn’t seem like a long time.”

• Cheryl Romano is a Yachats freelance reporter who contributes regularly to YachatsNews. She can be reached at Wordsell@gmail.com