"A life of hard work," is Dorothy Owen's explanation for her longevity.

Born May 25, 1906 in Boone, Iowa, Owen keeps busy these days tidying up her small garden surrounding her home in the Belmor complex in Federal Way and visiting with her son and grandsons.

On May 25, Owen plans to celebrate her century of life in the Northwest with a family dinner at Black Angus Restaurant.

A slight tremble in her hands and high blood pressure are her only health concerns - and she definitely needs to wear her hearing aid, she says.

She keeps illness at bay by staying active around the house, and says a lifetime of eating from her own kitchen garden helped keep her in the pink.

When she was six weeks old, Owen traveled west with her English mother to her father's family farm in Ephrata, Washington, near Spokane.

Growing up in Eastern Washington was a treat, said Owen, and she loved working around the farm. When she finished high school she trained to be a teacher at the Cheney Normal School, now Eastern Washington University.

"A 'normal school' is what they used to call teacher's colleges," explained Owen.

Upon graduation, she indeed got a post teaching at a one-roomed schoolhouse and served as the country schoolmarm until she met and married Marion Owen in 1931.

After a brief spell in Spokane, the newlyweds bought a house in Ephrata and her husband opened up a mechanic's garage.

When construction on the mammoth Grand Cooley Dam began in 1933, Marion joined the building crew and stayed until the project was completed in 1941.

Meanwhile, the couple had a son, Darrel, who is now in his early 70s and living with his wife in West Seattle.

"My mom is pretty unusual," said Darrel Owen. "She's totally self-sufficient, does her own cooking and lives alone. Once a week, I visit her and she takes me out to lunch!"

The Owens moved to Tacoma in 1945 and to Federal Way in 1971, where Dorothy has been ever since. Her husband Marion died in 1980.

"Mom never smoked, but my dad did, which was a sticking point between them," said Darrel.

Dorothy said that she never traveled out of the country in all of her long years, but she did go to Alaska via a cruise boat for her 90th birthday.

Last week, as she showed a visitor her many photographs displayed around her tidy living room, Owen's remarkable memory unfolded and she spoke of her hardscrablle days in rural Washington and of her many relatives, including her cousin Jean Seberg, the actress who starred in Jean-Luc Godard's classic film, Breathless, and who committed suicide in France in 1979.

She also spoke proudly of her two grandsons, Jeff and Douglas, both enjoying their early 30s in Seattle.

Douglas is pursuing a master's degree at the UW in Physics and Math and plays in a band. Jeff just started a yach rigging company.

"My grandma is the most strong-willed person I've ever known. She grew up very poor with dirt floors and worked for everything she's received," said Jeff Owen via his cell phone while working on a yacht in Gig Harbor last week. "She is so caring and giving, doesn't seek the limelight, just a beautiful person."

Dorothy Owen still owns a partial interest in a farm in Ephrata, and once a year her son takes on a trip out there for Memorial Day.

"From the kitchen window of my old house in Ephrata, I could see the cemetery plot belonging to my family, where my mother, siblings, the baby girl I lost in childbirth, and my husband are buried, and where I will be too," said Owen.

"But not yet," she said with a smile.