Glendora Woman Celebrates Her 105th Birthday

Surrounded by her family and friends at the Mesa Glen Care Center in Glendora Thursday, Elizabeth Foerster celebrated a life milestone - her 105th to be exact.

Foerster turned 105, one of roughly 72,000 centenarians in the United States. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest living person in the world is a 114-year-old woman from Osaka, Japan. While she still has a few years to go to catch up to the world record, family members say Foerster is still very healthy for a 105-year-old.

Eldest daughter Loretta Casey attributed her mother’s longevity to her healthy diet and her refusal to take prescription drugs.

Born in Hamburg, Germany as the eighth child of 18 children in 1908, Foerster moved to the United States in the late 1920s before Europe fell into the grips of World War II. She worked as a nanny before immigrating to the United States and became a homemaker with the arrival of her first child.

She moved with her husband and three children from New York to Glendora in the 1970s.

Granddaughter Carol Casey said while her grandmother may be hard of hearing these days, she still delights in music as much as she did in her youth.

“She and my grandfather loved music and were always dancing,” said Casey. “I think now, she’s just enjoying each day.”

"We're just fortunate to have her here and she's as healthy as she is now," Foerster’s daughter Loretta said.