Elizabeth (Wheeler) Steinsiek celebrated her 100th birthday Sunday afternoon, surrounded by family and friends.

Steinsiek is a lifelong resident of Whidbey Island, and currently resides at Regency on Whidbey Harbor Care in Oak Harbor.

Her family, the Wheelers and Dorwards, came to Whidbey from Oregon between 1911 and 1914. She was born on Aug. 1, 1915, in a new building on Scenic Heights that would later be used as a chicken coop. Paul Steinsiek, Elizabeth’s son, explained that this was because the family was staying with his great-uncle George Dorward temporarily while Elizabeth’s father, Fred Wheeler, finished building a new home for his wife and children.

Fred Wheeler and Elvira (Dorward) Wheeler had nine children: Connie, Jean, Menzo, Fred, Helen, Rob, Bruce and Elizabeth. Helen and Menzo died in infancy; Elizabeth is the only surviving sibling.

Also, Elizabeth Steinsiek is a lifelong member of the Methodist Church in Oak Harbor, where she taught Sunday school as a teenager and played organ and piano in the 1930s and early 1940s.

She was also active in the women’s circles and in Rebekah Lodge 254 for many years, and received recognition for her outstanding service.

She attended Watson’s Corner School and graduated from Oak Harbor High School in 1933.

As a teenager, she was in Camp Fire Girls in a group led by her sister, Connie. She enjoyed telling a story of the time she and the group were camping on the beach at Maylor’s Point.

They’d spread their bedrolls on a sandy area and were soaked when the full moon high tide washed onto them. She recalled they had quite a bit of fun, despite the dampness.

After working at her sister’s family dairy farm in Monroe, Elizabeth Steinsiek worked for the West Coast Telephone Company in Oak Harbor as an operator. While working there she met a young sailor, Al Steinsiek, who became her husband on Aug. 5, 1943.

The couple lived at the Wheeler home on Scenic Heights until Al Steinsiek was discharged from the service. They briefly lived in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona in the late 1940s and early 1960s, always returning to Oak Harbor, where their four children, Paul, Kathy, George and Phil were born.

Her favorite activity of 80 years was reading, until macular degeneration and cataracts took that pleasure from her.

Rather than bemoan the loss, however, she found humor in how these conditions distorted what she could still see, such as the noses of people on TV.

Steinsiek has often said that complaining about what one can’t change does no good and only drives people away. Her life philosophy is to live a useful life with faith an optimism.

Elizabeth Steinsieck has nine grandchildren and a dozen great-grandkids.