Yesterday, longtime Mossbrae Lifecare resident Rosabel Lott turned 100 and celebrated in a room packed to the rafters with her family.
Despite reaching the milestone, Ms Lott was as quick-witted as the day she turned 21, and was just as modest.
"I don’t know why all this fuss really. You can put me in the newspaper I suppose, if you don’t feel like selling any."
Ms Lott is Mossbrae Lifecare’s longest-staying resident.
She moved into the home in 2006 as an 81-year-old after heart surgery.
"Nowhere else to go now, I’d have to park up on the street corner if it wasn’t for them," she joked.
Ms Lott was born in Kokonga, when it was a quaint little Maniototo settlement.
Nowadays, the site is an easy-to-miss stretch of road along the Otago Central Rail Trail.
"They thought there would be more like me, so they got rid of it," Ms Lott said about her hometown.
She survived a brush with death as a small baby when some mischievous older relatives pushed her into the river — pram and all.
"Obviously, they didn’t manage to drown me," Ms Lott said.
She was the middle child of 12 siblings, and has outlived them all. However, she was surrounded by various great- and great-great-nieces and nephews yesterday.
Ms Lott worked most of her life at Continental Caterers in South Dunedin while raising her only child, Justin, in Highcliff.
She never married, and it was suggested by family members this could have been a reason for her long life.
Ms Lott has been a life-long supporter of the Wingatui races and many of her numerous nieces and nephews had memories of riding along in her green Volkswagen Beetle to go along to watch their aunt place her bets.
While she had not been to the races in "a fair bit", some things do not fade with age, and she still places the odd bet at the TAB.
Despite insisting she "didn’t have a future", Ms Lott was quick to admit her future was standing in front of her in the form of her ever-expanding family.
"Lots of love and hard work ... that’s the secret to reaching 100," she said.
