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Shotliff celebrates long life Betty Shotliff with her son Terry. [Photo by John Darling] Monday May 1, 2017 at 12:01 AM By John Darling For the Tidings Betty Shotliff is 100. How did she do this? Eat healthy, don’t smoke, keep busy, help people, have a whisky sour once in a while and, above all, keep active and “just keep going.” Living alone in a cabin on the Greensprings, as she has for decades, Shotliff gets by with a little help from her friends, who come over to check on her and take her on shopping trips (she still walks, but shows the years). They just threw a 100th birthday party for her with 45 people at Greensprings Inn. “It was a wonderful party,” says Shotliff, who, during her long life, worked as a cook at Pinehurst School, was a secretary for the Boy Scouts in her native Indiana and learned to sew, paint prolifically with water colors, play a violin and fly an airplane, while raising two sons, Terry and John Shotliff. The latter has died, but Terry, 76, was out here for the birthday. “She did pretty much what she liked to do, and enjoyed her life,” he says. “She did a lot of different crafts and was really good at them. When my brother and I were in band at school, she helped a lot.” About her sons, she says, “They were good boys … most of the time.” She grew up in the Great Depression, but brushes it off, noting, “It’s just the way things were, not particularly awful. No, we never skipped a meal.” Her father, a machinist and bridge builder for American Bridge, learned to fly and Betty followed suit, mastering a now-antique Rearwin Sportster in her 20s. Her husband died in 1975 and in 1979, Betty moved to Southern Oregon with her close friend from Indiana, noted artist Harriet Rex Smith. She soon found her cabin on 25 acres nestled in the woods a few miles east of Greensprings Inn. “She was the nanny of my kids back in her '70s and my daughter thought of her as a second mother,” says Susan Lantello, a former Greensprings resident. “She was really close to me. She’s ornery and independent. That was the key. She kept herself busy and did years and years of English-Scottish dancing.” “Clean living, helping people and staying busy. That’s how she got to live this long,” says Jim Schiller, a lifelong family friend, visiting from Indiana. Betty says there’s nothing really wrong with her, “just my feet — and it’s getting harder to remember names of people and things.” “She was from that generation where people didn’t complain,” says friend Gary Graefe, who often drove her to town. “She lived through the Depression and World War II. They were resilient people and didn’t expect anyone to do anything for them. That’s her personality. People didn’t whine or feel sorry for themselves. They looked at what needed to be done and did it. Her health is good. She’s an artist. She was thriving till a year ago. She’s just a sweet, wonderful lady.” — John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].