100th birthday gets big celebration
By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN
ELLIS -- When you make it this far in life, you deserve a multitude of birthday parties.
Jennie Aust's family has been throwing their mother a party every single year since she turned 90 back in 1999.
But this year's celebration -- make that plural -- probably topped them all.
That's the way 100th birthdays are supposed to be celebrated, in a big way.
Just a few days after an open house with cake and punch with about 100 family members and friends for her century-mark celebration last Saturday, Aust was honored again Tuesday.
This time, there were twice that many people who converged on the Good Samaritan Center for its 50th anniversary celebration.
While she wasn't the center of attention this time around, Aust, who turned 100 on Sunday, still got her share.
Rep. Dan Johnson, R-Hays, on hand to say a few words in honor of the center's golden jubilee, presented Aust with a certificate and a mug from the House of Representatives.
Sen. Janis Lee, D-Kensington, also honored the centenarian.
Letters were read to Aust from Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson and Kathleen Sebelius, former Kansas governor who now is Health and Human Services Secretary in Washington.
Aust, sporting a red rose corsage, took it all in as she sat among the residents and other party-goers.
She certainly deserved it.
After her husband, Jake, died of leukemia in 1956 at 54, Aust -- a stay-at-home mom who raised six children -- started working out of the home to help provide for her three youngest children who still lived at home.
"Things really changed then," said Doris Coddington from Hill City, one of Aust's four daughters. "But she was great."
All five of Aust's living children were in attendance at Saturday's open house.
And four made it back Tuesday, including son Jerold Aust from Alabama and daughter Nancy Tirone from New Jersey.
Tirone, who was just 9 when her father died, said some of her memories of her mother while growing up in Palco included her being a "very good dancer, a tremendously good cook and always so helpful to others."
Now, she doesn't have to worry about any of that.
"This is a great place, they take such good care of Mom," said Coddington.
Her mother was moved to the center from her home in Palco in 2004.
"And Mark is such a good guy," Coddington said of the facility's director, Mark Schulte. "He planned all this for her."
"She really likes it here," Tirone added, "and everybody loves her."