Magnificent at 103:
Margaret Dement reflects on more than a century
Story Holy
M. Gill, Madras, Ore., Pioneer 2/4/2015
At 103,
Margaret Dement is in an elite crowd. The longtime Madras resident still lives
alone, staying busy reading, playing the piano, and baking for herself and
friends.
"I love
to bake," said Dement, who makes cookies and small loaves of orange bread
from a recipe she clipped from a newspaper back in 1971.
Five years
ago, Dement gave up driving, and just a year ago, gave up playing the organ at
the Good Shepherd Lutheran and St. Mark's Episcopal Church, but she still manages
to attend church just about every Sunday, and visit friends at the Jefferson
County Senior Center once a week.
Although she
never smoked or drank, Dement primarily attributes her long life to good genes.
Her father, Henry Lever, was still working as a real estate agent in Madras at
age 96, in 1980, when he was hit by a car when he tried to cross the highway
from his office on South Highway 97, just south of Hall Road.
At the
hospital, Dement recalled, "He said to me, 'You know, Marg, I thought I could
beat that car.'" He died that same day.
Dement was
born in Dixon, Mo. — at "a wide place in the road" — on Aug. 12,
1911, to Henry and Marguerite Lever. That year, she lived with her mother and
slightly older brother, Tom, on a ranch, while her father coached football at
Texas Christian University — two states and 540 miles away.
When she was
about 5, the growing family moved to Shreveport, La., where her father was the
overseer of a plantation with cotton and beef cattle for a couple years.
"We didn't have a car, but had a nice carriage, and a guy to drive
it," she said.
From there,
her father, who had "a wandering foot," moved the family to Alberta,
Canada, where her father farmed 60 acres of dry land, raising flax and wheat.
The family
spent five years near the town of Coalhurst, where life was hard. Dement
remembers walking two miles to school with two of her brothers, with
temperatures dropping to -30 degrees in the winter.
Nearly 100
years later, she still has nightmares about one horrible day when the family
planned to meet friends for a picnic and set out in their two-seated buggy and
wagon, pulled by a pair of horses. She was in the wagon with three of her
brothers and one sister.
On their
way, her father decided that he knew a better way to cross the Belly River.
"Mom was sitting up front with a baby on her lap and one on the seat. He
said,'Hang on kids!'" she said.
"About
halfway across, the horses started to swim," said Dement. "The food
basket floated away; we were too busy trying to hold on."
When they
got to the steep bank on the other side, the current was driving the horses and
buggy downstream. "Dad was beating the horses with all his might, but we
were losing ground," she said, trembling from the memory of the harrowing
ordeal.
The horses
somehow managed to pull the cart up the bank onto solid ground, but then
collapsed from the effort. When her family finally made it to their
destination, she said that she can still see her mother looking up at her dad
and asking, "Henry, have you forgotten that none of us can swim?"
When she was
in eighth grade, the family moved to Wedderburn, in Southern Oregon, near Gold
Beach, where her father managed a cattle ranch, which also had thoroughbred
horses and a race track.
Photo: Dement
and her husband, Karl, are seated atop their car in 1938, the year they were
married.
There,
Margaret Lever met her future husband, Karl Dement, and took an instant dislike
to him. Karl, who was one of two children, badgered her when he'd ride by on
his bike singing, "Seven little Levers, how do they grow?"
"I
hated him," she said, recalling that he deliberately mispronounced their
name to rhyme with "clever," rather than "cleaver."
In 1926, the
family moved to Myrtle Point, where her father taught math and coached football
until 1930, when he was hired to coach football, baseball and track at Linfield
College in McMinnville. Lever, a civil engineer, taught algebra and geometry at
the college and even designed a couple of the buildings at the college, where
he was called the "Grand Old Man of Linfield."
Fortunately
for the family, the 18 years that Lever taught and coached at Linfield allowed
Margaret and three of her eight siblings to attend college at no cost.
Dement, who
had graduated from Myrtle Point High School in 1930, attended Linfield, where
she graduated in 1934, with a bachelor's degree in English with a music minor.
Somehow, she managed to find a job teaching English and directing the band at
Glendale High School, where she earned $90 a month.
"I just
stretched that," she said, adding that she bought herself a wristwatch her
first month and a fur coat the second month.
Over the
years, she had grown fond of Karl Dement, who even attended Linfield for a year
to be closer to her. He proposed in a letter, and the two were married Feb. 25,
1938, in Corvallis.
The new
bride finished out the teaching year, and then moved to Coquille to be with her
husband, who owned a butcher shop there. Dement worked as a substitute teacher
at the Coquille schools, and in 1940, had a son, Erik.
When the
U.S. entered World War II, her husband joined the U.S. Navy and was sent to the
South Pacific. "He got on the train, and said, 'Take care of Erik,'"
recalled Dement.
In November
1942, when Karl was stationed in the Ellice Islands, as a member of the
Seabees, she experienced the greatest sorrow of her life.
Erik, who
was then 2 1/2 years old, was riding his tricycle out in their yard with a
friend, when she decided to go to the store — two blocks away — to get milk.
Dement called out to her husband's grandmother, who was out in the yard, that
she was going to the store.
While she
was gone, the two boys rode their trikes down the street, and slipped under a
gate and down an embankment, where her son drowned in about six inches of
water. The other child tried to get help, but couldn't speak.
She was
devastated. "I had a lot of people try to help me," said Dement, who
hoped that her husband would be able to come home to her. "I had a letter
from his commanding officer that said we're terribly sorry for you, but you
know, there's a war on."
Dement, who
couldn't bear to live there anymore, went back to McMinnville, to be near her
family, and got a job as a typist at a Portland department store.
"You
can't imagine how empty your arms are," said Dement, who waited another
three years for her husband to return.
"I have
a little verse that I said during terrible days: 'I look to thee in every need;
I never look in vain; I feel your touch eternal God, and all is well
again,'" said Dement. "It kind of kept me going. That's what religion
is for — to pull us through. There are some things you can't do a darn thing
about."
With money
her husband sent home, Dement bought a little house on timbered property in
McMinnville, where they lived when he returned in 1945, and had two more
children, Tom Dement, who is now a retired Episcopal priest, and Marian Granby,
who lives in Madras, and works as a substitute teacher.
In 1952, the
year her mother died of cancer, the Dements moved back to the Southern Oregon
coastal area, living in Broadbent and Myrtle Point, where they raised cattle.
Dement directed church choir, taught choir at Myrtle Point High School, and
became involved in politics when Mark Hatfield ran for secretary of state.
In 1965, the
Dements separated, and Margaret Dement moved to Madras, where her father was
working as a real estate agent, and two brothers lived. Jim Lever — one of her
two surviving siblings — worked on their Willowdale area ranch, and Dan Lever
taught history and coached football.
Besides
working in the real estate office with her father, Dement taught piano lessons,
played honkey tonk piano for a theater group, and was the curator of the
Jefferson County Museum for many years.
"Mother
has many qualities which I admire: her generosity, love for her family, her
ability to overcome tremendous personal loss with her religious faith, and her
abundant energy," said her daughter, Marian Granby, who lives near her
mother.
"Even
though she never exercised, she seldom sat still," Granby added. "She
was always doing something."
Dement loves
learning, and is an avid reader of the Washington Times newspaper, and National
Geographic and Smithsonian magazines, as well as biographies and travel books.
She's also a regular writer of letters to the editor.
For many
years, Dement traveled with Elderhostel, a not-for-profit organization that
offers learning tours. She visited England, Switzerland, Germany and Italy —
where she took a rail line to Naples and rode in a gondola — as well as
locations in the U.S., such as California, North Dakota and Arizona.
"I was
too busy to travel earlier," said Dement, who recommended the experience
to others interested in travel. "I wanted to visit places in the U.S. that
I hadn't been. All it costs is your plane fare, practically."
When she was
younger, Dement enjoyed gardening, and is proud that her church named their
garden after her. She was also honored by her peers at the Jefferson County
Senior Center as Senior of the Year in 2004.
Dement has
one grandson, Christopher Blue, of Tucson, Ariz., Tom's son, and two
granddaughters, Kristina, of Hillsboro, and Margee, of Madras, the daughters of
Marian and Jon Granby. She also has one great-grandson, Tierson, nearly 2.
............
PHOTOS
--Madras resident Margaret Dement, 103, has lived a life full of family, education and travel. Photoby Holly M. Gill.
--Dement and her husband, Karl, are seated atop their car in 1938, the year they were married. Photo from Dement.
--Dement was a 26-year-old teacher at Oakridge High School when she posed for this photo. Photo from Dement.
