Oakley marks 100th birthday
Lettie Faye Oakley will be joined by family members March 2 to quietly celebrate her 100th birthday with stories, photos, flowers, a cake and some of her favorite foods, including some from her family recipes.
Oakley was just a teenager when she left her farm life in Iowa for Southern California to help her Aunt Fay care for a niece who was born with special needs. It was there in Southern California that Lettie met Bob Oakley.
The couple married in June 1941. Bob had just completed his time of service with the Navy, but rejoined the military after war broke out that December.
Bob and Lettie were married 47 years before his death from cancer in 1988. They had four children together — Audrey, Arlene, Marilynn and Kim — and lived in Kneeland since the late 1940s.
They attended Eureka First Baptist Church in those early years, and then that church supported the Oakleys' effort to start a church on Kneeland Mountain. Bob and Lettie were a big part of the community of Kneeland, even suggesting the name “Greenwood Heights Drive,” still in use today. Their church, Greenwood Heights Chapel, was a vibrant part of the community for many years, and they made many close friends. When the chapel closed, they became involved in Church of the Highlands, Eureka, where they helped to teach Sunday school before Bob's passing.
Later in her life, Lettie attended Grace Baptist Church in Eureka. She also continued well into her 90s to be involved from home in occasional projects for Eureka First Baptist Church, preparing crafts for Sunday school classes, helping to prepare women's retreat materials and packing shoeboxes for needy children through Operation Christmas Child.
Lettie counts her family as one of her biggest blessings from God. In addition to her four children and their spouses, she has 59 grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and greatgreat-grandchildren.
She has spent much of her life sewing, doing needlework, growing flowers, cooking amazing meals and caring for animals and children. She does much less of those things now, but still loves to laugh, and to hear and sing songs about Jesus and heaven.