Almost 103 years later, on Sept. 1, 2002, she celebrated her birthday with approximately 130 guests in her small Willow Glen home on the street she's lived on since the 1940s.

"I was very happy," Lujan says of her birthday party, a potluck that began at 2:30 p.m. and carried on into the evening. "Most of my family was here, and lots of children, old friends." She also notes that, despite a request not to bring gifts, many, many flowers filled the house.

Lujan, the mother of five—Frank, Jessie, David, Connie and Dick—raised her children mostly single-handedly, despite three marriages over the years. Her "baby" is 69 years old, and her eldest is 80.

The colorful blankets that decorate the backs of chairs around her living room are similar to the ones she has hand-crocheted for each of her 31 grandchildren. She can place three "greats" in front of "grandmother," which means there are too many great-grandchildren to count during the course of an interview.

"I never thought I'd get to be this old," Lujan says with a smile.

It appears that longevity is in her blood—her three sisters all lived into their nineties, and her brother, a heavy smoker, until he was 69. Further proof that the secret is in her genes—her children, four of whom are alive and well, appear to be about 20 years younger than they actually are. Lujan's daughter Jessie died at the age of 75.

Old is not the word to describe Lujan, however. She is simply more experienced. Her eyes are bright and kind. She has more memories than most.

A year after she was born, her family moved to La Paz, where she was raised. Then she continued moving up through Baja California, coming to Arizona in 1919 before arriving in California in 1922. She settled in Willow Glen in 1944, into a house about three doors down from where she lives now and has since 1959.

"I moved so many times," Lujan says simply. "Solita en mi alma" ("I am alone in my soul.") It is an elegant way to say that she lives peacefully alone even still, though her tone wavers between contentedness and sadness. She is, at the least, resigned to her solitude.

"She's not lonely, though," interjects her youngest son, Dick Levya. He lives only three miles away and stops by every third day. Daughter Connie Karnes lives in San Leandro and faithfully spends Saturday through Tuesday with her mother. David, her middle child and a jokester, lives only two miles away. He visits about once a week and calls frequently. All three children are present during the interview. The eldest child, Frank, lives in Sonoma.

"She says now she has to wear her dog collar," Dick adds.

Her "dog collar" is actually a Lifeline necklace that has an emergency button she can push in the event that she falls. If she presses the button and cannot be reached by phone, an ambulance is automatically sent to the house.

Lujan says she wears the emergency necklance for her children. "For me, I want to throw it away."

Her dog, Hapka, is present also—a small canine with a large bark that was left by a former neighbor and friend who was deported 13 years ago. "Hapka" is Polish for "happy," and Hapka is at least 91 years old in dog years.

Contributed photograph A Family: This photograph, taken in 1925, in El Rey, Ariz., shows Willow Glen resident Dominga Lujan, center right, at the age of 26, with her husband, J.J. Leyva, left, and children Jessie and Frank.

"This whole area that is now the Silicon Valley used to grow a lot of fruit," Dick says. "It was a thriving cannery community. In the summers men and women worked in the canneries. That's what she did, and that's how she made a living."

Lujan doesn't say whether the work was good or bad, only that she worked hard, or, as she puts it, "till the end." Of her time housecleaning, she jokes, "I was dumb. The lady told me just to take care of the babies, but then I started doing everything—cleaning house, cooking, everything."

For 10 years after her retirement Lujan participated in the Foster Grandparents program in San Jose and worked with troubled girls at the Santa Clara County Children's Shelter.

"She did a lot of dancing, too," David says. "She could dance all night." Lujan readily agrees.

"I love dancing," she says. "Now I am unable to move my legs."

She adds, "In these days they don't dance like they used to," referring to the ballroom dancing that was popular in dance halls and at parties several decades ago.

One of the rare individuals to witness the passing of an entire century, Lujan has noted many other changes in society and the local area.

"I would get out of the cannery at two or three in the morning and see children out. Nothing bad happened. Now it is impossible," she states.

She also prefers the orchards to the modern buildings that crowd Silicon Valley. "Old as I am, I like the way it was before."

On the other hand, Lujan cites improved transportation systems and better social care for the homeless and poverty-stricken as positive steps forward over time.

One hundred and three years is, without question, a long time to live, and few are privileged to live long enough to share firsthand accounts of the transformation of society over the 20th century. What is her secret for living a long life?

"She'll tell you she never smoked, she never drank, she worked hard, and ate everything she wanted," Connie says. Indeed, Lujan does say this, but in Spanish. Then in English, she adds, gesturing to Dick, Connie and David, "and taking care of my children—taking care of these guys!"

"I'd say she's truly spiritual. She says her prayers regularly," Dick explains thoughtfully. Lujan is both a baptized Roman Catholic and a member of the Rosicrucians. He continues, "She's always maintained a keen sense of humor. She laughs a lot, she's ready to tell a joke, and she sings."

Smiling at her mother, Connie adds, "She wakes up in the morning singing."