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Longtime resident Laura Newman turned 100 today,  July 6, 2000.  I was able to ask for her formula for living to be 100.  Her response?  Very simple.  "Keep smiling."  Enjoy these photos, and click here for a biographical history.

Usually you only have to buy 2 of these numeric candles.	Laura blows out her candles
Co-owner Consuela Lopez stops the band to announce the momentous occasion.	Laura poses for local print photographer Peter Worth.
Longtime friends Bill and Marilyn McKernan helped organize the party.	Laura was joined by friends for dinner and cake.

Long-time Sierra Madre Resident Celebrates 100th Birthday
By Bill Coburn

Sierra Madre – Laura Newman, long-time Sierra Madre resident, poet, health professional and painter, celebrated her 100th birthday with friends at dinner at the Peppertree Grill on July 7, 2000.

Laura, the fifth child of Mary and Charles Knight was born on July 6th, 1900, in Belleville, in Ontario, Canada.  At the age of 7, her family moved to the (then) newly formed province of Saskatchewan.  Laura spent her formative years there, and began teaching at age 17.  At the age of 20, she married son of a neighbor, a man named Harry Coey, who was an American.  At that time, marriage to an American automatically made you an American citizen.

During the next couple of years, Laura and Harry spent some time in Minneapolis and Wisconsin, where they had a daughter.  Unfortunately, Harry suffered from poor health, so they returned to his father’s home in Canada.  Their daughter died there in 1924 and Harry died shortly thereafter.  Distraught by the double tragedy, Laura returned to teaching, and found a way to express her emotions by writing poetry.  She spoke of Harry’s death in her poem Dying, but never wrote of the death of her daughter.  “There are some things which lie too deep for tears and which cannot be expressed.”

Laura also resumed painting and won awards for her work.  In 1928, she met Joe Newman, who encouraged her in her artistic endeavors.  While they liked each other very much, Laura was hesitant to fall in love again.  Nevertheless, they fell in love, but their togetherness was postponed by the Great Depression.  Schools closed, and teaching jobs were hard to come by.  She and her sister found work in a town called Kelowna in the summer and Vancouver in the winter.  Laura continued with her poetry, and painted pastels for an art department.

In the spring, upon her return to Kelowna, Laura entered a poetry contest and won first prize.  For years, her poem was used in a brochure advertising the city.  In 1931, her first book of poetry was published, “Memories and Other Poems” by Orchard Press, and was popular enough that it was reprinted a few years later.  Shortly afterwards, Laura sold several copies of her book to a department store in Vancouver, where a local radio station owner found a copy, fell in love with her work and began reading them on the radio.

In the meantime, Joe Newman had started a small business in Toronto.  When Laura sent him a copy of some of her poems, he responded that since Toronto was the cultural center of Canada, she should be there.  She joined Joe in Toronto where she continued writing and helped him with his new health business.  Laura was quite interested in the new things she was learning about health, and decided to attend the Indiana College of Physiotherapy, where she obtained her degree as Physiotherapist and Naturopathic Doctor.

Laura practiced her new profession in Buffalo, where she began giving lectures to assist Joe.  They moved to Denver for a while and continued with her lectures, and while there she wrote a book called “Make Your Juicer Your Drugstore,” which for many years was sold in health food stores throughout the U.S. and Canada.  By this time she and Joe had invented a juicer, which they moved to Sierra Madre to manufacture during the 1940s.

Joe passed away in 1964, and Laura left the business of manufacturing.  She spent the next few years at various pursuits, including studying Spanish for 13 years; writing “Bienvenido a Mi Mundo”, which teaches Spanish speaking people to speak the English language correctly; she wrote her autobiography, “The Moving Finger Writes” and she wrote another health book, stressing the power of the mind in keeping one strong and healthy, both mentally and physically.
This is a philosophy that Laura lives to this day, when at the age of 100, she still lives alone, though her hearing and eyesight aren’t what they once were.  When asked her formula for living to 100, her answer was simply “Keep smiling.”  We will Laura.  And happy birthday!
 

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