Corning woman to celebrate 104th birthday Saturday

She was a blonde, blue-eyed girl less than 10 years old when she watched her parents open the first movie house in Corning. That was 1917.

Today, that girl celebrates her 104th birthday, and she still lives right here in Corning.

Winofred White's yellow hair, as she refers to it, has given way to silver gray, but her blue eyes which have witnessed more than a century of life, still sparkle with mischief and curiosity.

"She can be a real character," said Dianna Haley, who with her parents Jeff and Elena Heaney, take care of White at their Olive City Care Home on Walnut Street.

Sitting in her comfortable chair, fingernails painted bright pink, hair styled and wearing a nice outfit with matching jewelry, White doesn't look her age, and the only real deficit she suffers is hearing loss.

"Wini never leaves her room without wearing jewelry," says one of her fellow care home residents. "And she loves bananas. When we eat we have to watch out for our bananas so she doesn't take them."

White greets everyone who comes into the room with a wide, although somewhat toothless grin, a wave of the hand and a friendly, "Hi, how are you?"

And while her memory is frail, somewhat like her small framed body, there are triggers that send her into laughter and song.

White loves to sing, and remembers the words to her favorite songs better than she remembers her own name.

All that caretaker Elena Heaney has to do is sing a few notes to songs such as "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny," and away White goes, picking up the words and tune and waving her arms like a professional pe former to the delight of all around her.

Another thing that really lights up White's world is to talk about her family. That brings a joy to her face like nothing else can.

White is the daughter of Frank and Mary Alice Rodgers.

She is the youngest of the couple's 11 children, three of whom died while very young.

White wrote a book about her family, "All for Love of Family, a historical biography."

"This family history is dedicated to my most precious mother and father to show the great love, devotion, and loyalty bestowed upon us children, and the respect we hold for them which they so richly deserved," White wrote in the book.

The only of her siblings to be born outside Iowa, White was born in Sunnyside, Wash., on Jan. 14, 1908, when her mother was 43 years old and her father, 45.

A few years later, the family moved to the Sacramento Valley, where they bought the Orange Ranch and grew grapes, olives and peaches.

White wrote in her book, "Out in the country, here on creekside, we became permanent residents of this little California community. Corning was hometown to us for the rest of our lives."

The family eventually moved off the ranch and into a house in town, where they owned a store and her father worked in construction.

White has witnessed many wondrous "firsts," such as having electricity and indoor plumbing in her childhood home, and the excitement of the family's first automobile.

As a child she was right by her parents' side when they decided to open the movie house above the family store on the main street of town, with tickets 10 cents for children and 15 cents for adults. Eventually the family purchased a second movie house and ran both in town, playing silent movies accompanied by a hired pianist.

After the family's home on Houghton and Yolo streets caught fire from a defect in the electrical wiring, the family moved to a new home at Yolo and West streets, a place closer to the store and movie house.

She was alive when the olive and the olive industry boomed in Corning and the town's slogan was changed from "Corning, the Clean Town," to "Corning, the Olive Town."

White was very involved in high school activities, and like many of her siblings, graduated from Corning High School, which her father helped build.

She attended University of California, Berkeley, but dropped out before the end of her first year, and it was back to Corning.

Not long after, White became reacquainted with her future husband, Wayne White. Following a bad car accident involving the two, they were soon married, the bride on crutches, in the home of her sister, "in the beautiful twilight of the early autumn evening hours."

The White's lived in Dairyville on Wayne's family farm, and eventually became the parents of their daughter, Marjorie Kay.

She writes about her parents opening Rodgers Theatre in 1935 and showing talking movies.

"A very special, delightful incident had taken place at our theater, right here in our hometown. I though it tremendously exciting. Frank Sinatra had, in his cruise throughout the state, stopped in at our show house. It was during the day. The show wasn't on. Wealthy (White's brother) was there alone, and Ol' Blue Eyes, himself, took Wealthy upon the stage in our big empty theater auditorium and, just to him alone, sang 'I Did It My Way,'" White wrote in her book.

The building still stands on its original site, now owned by the City of Corning and undergoing major renovations.

When Winofred and Wayne went "their separate ways," White took her daughter and moved to the Bay Area, where she stayed for many, many years working as a legal secretary, and then for 17 years with the City of Oakland Parks and Recreation Department.

White has lived through two world wars and the Great depression, but in her book she recalls some of the simpler moments like the introduction of synthetics, Pyrex dishes, the refrigerator, cosmetics, the replacement of silk stockings with nylons, talking movies, air-conditioning, and television.

She now has four grandchildren and several great, and great-great children, and has been living in the local care home since July.

White's memories are fading as the clock ticks by, and her hold on time wearies, "But what is time?" she says in her book.