AURORA | Isabelle Padden had plenty of parties to attend last week.
Padden officially turned 100 years old Sept. 3, but there were too many friends, family members and well-wishers to see in a single day. Her birthday celebration spanned the entire week — it included a weekend bash at a local hotel, a get-together with her fellow residents at the MorningStar retirement home on Dayton Street and a party with her church group in Lakewood. Sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren came for Padden’s centennial, as did other relatives from across the country.
“I was surprised. There were a lot of people there that I didn’t know were coming,” Padden said, seated in an easy chair in her room at the MorningStar building, just west of Aurora. “There were relatives, and a few stragglers,” she added with a quick laugh and a wide smile.
Padden clearly didn’t mind all of the attention that came with her birthday. A Minnesota native who moved to Colorado with her husband in the 1960s, Padden has always been one to make connections easily. According to her daughter Eileen Padden, that comes from a warmth, humor and light that hasn’t dimmed with the decades.
“She has a lot of friends, going back 50 years here in Colorado,” Eileen Padden said. “What I’ve gotten from my mom is the laughter, the sense of humor. She’s just got a great attitude. She’s never looked at getting older as a problem.”
That much is clear after speaking to Isabelle Padden for five minutes. Though she’s quick to warn that she suffers from a “bum brain,” Isabelle Padden is quick to offer anecdotes, songs and memories pulled from a century. She’ll speak fondly of a childhood spent on a farm with three brothers and three sisters in the rural wilds of Minnesota, of attending her first classes in a one-room schoolhouse where she had to learn a new language. Her parents had moved to the U.S. from Canada, and Padden spent the first years of her life speaking French.
“They came to Minnesota to get married. My mother was 16, and my dad was a logger,” Isabelle Padden said, adding that the open spaces and freedom of Minnesota made for an ideal childhood. “I liked the farm. There was something about it — We were able to run around through the cornfields and nobody worried about us. We were so free.”
Minnesota was also the place where Isabelle Padden met her husband, Fred. His work would take the couple to Nebraska and eventually Colorado, where they raised four children.
Those four children, along with dozens of grandkids and great-grandkids, were on hand this week for Isabelle’s 100th birthday. Her party last weekend included the screening of a video interview conducted by her son, Rick, who asked about the secret to her longevity. She’s hesitant to offer any easy formula for her 100 years, but Isabelle Padden has a tip about the best way to deal with life’s ups and downs.
“I don’t have a secret,” she said, before adding that she makes a point of laughing every day. “Laughter is the best spice of life.”
Along with laughter, music ranks pretty high on her list of life’s high points. Isabelle Padden is still apt to break into song when the mood hits. Speaking about her Francophone childhood, she recalled a tune gleaned from her French-Canadian father about a fly. That’s all it took to get her to sing “La Mouche,” a song that includes foot stomps dutifully performed by Isabelle Padden.
That tune, along with others, has wowed plenty of employees at the Morning Star facility on Dayton Street.
“One of the aids here was so impressed that I sat there and sang that song,” Isabelle Padden recalled. “She said, ‘Oh my, I didn’t know you could sing in French.’”
That upbeat attitude and spirit has persisted through plenty of change and loss. Padden lost her husband in 1991; and she’s the last surviving sibling of the seven who grew up on the farm in Hugo, Minnesota. Through all of the transitions, Isabelle Padden has found a way to keep up a bright attitude and an impressive network of friends.
She has a simple explanation for her popularity.
“I guess it’s because I giggle,” she said.
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com