Still nimble at 90
Published: September 21, 2005
For her 80th birthday, Mary Esselstrom jumped out of a plane.
On Sunday, as Esselstrom celebrated her 90th, she didn’t have anything nearly as adventurous planned. She was content to be at her home in Green and mark her birthday with a quiet gathering of family and friends.
On Tuesday, though, she plans to jump into a plane and remain strapped in her seat until the captain turns off the seat belt sign after the aircraft lands at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
Esselstrom said she isn’t much for gambling, but she plans to see a few stores, go out to Hoover Dam and view other tourist spots with her son and daughter-in-law.
And after she returns from her week’s vacation and takes another week off, Esselstrom has to go back to work.
For the past seven years, Esselstrom has worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart. She works at the store’s garden entrance, which matches perfectly with her love of gardening. At home, she tends to a large number of rose bushes, a grape arbor and a mixture of annual and perennial flowering plants.
Her son, Kerwin Doughton, offers to mow her lawn or provide someone to do the work. However, Esselstrom won’t stand for it, insisting to clip the grass herself.
“My family comes first, then my yard,” Esselstrom said, smiling. “I love to go out and sit on my deck at night.”
She spent six years, until she was in her 80s, working for Sears. After she quit there, she felt she was ready to retire. That didn’t last long at all.
“I stayed home two weeks and that was it,” Esselstrom said.
Esselstrom was born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, at the foot of the Canadian Rockies, north of Kalispell, Mont. Her dad was born in Scotland but later settled in British Columbia. Her mother was a native Oregonian who went north for nurse’s training. She met a handsome Scot while there in Vancouver, B.C., fell in love and got married.
The family later moved to Dallas, Ore., where Esselstrom grew up.
She has lived in Douglas County for several decades, in Roseburg, Winchester Bay and Tyee. She has outlived two husbands but hasn’t let that weigh her down. Esselstrom has worked much of her life — at dentists’ offices, as a house mother for an Oregon State University fraternity and later as a store clerk.
“I like to be with people. They play a big role in my life,” she said.
On Friday, the wife of one of her Wal-Mart co-workers made her a birthday cake and brought it to the store to surprise her. Store workers and customers alike love her.
“She’s a friend to everyone who comes in contact with her,” co-worker Shirley Bond said. “She’s an inspiration to us all.”
Betty McMunn, John Sowell 9/16/05 SIC another Wal-Mart worker, said she hopes she has the same amount of energy as Esselstrom when she gets to be that age.
“She’s really an amazing woman. She’s a well-known fixture here at Wal-Mart,” McMunn said.
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