Santa Rosa centenarian hits 105 running

When Elsie Rich and her husband made it to America, a friend invited them to spend the weekend in Santa Rosa.

That was in 1943 — "It was a long weekend!" crows Rich in a happy, sing-song Austrian accent somewhat reminiscent of a Cloris Leachman character.

The diminutive dynamo still has run-to-the-bus speed (or, according to fellow temple-goers at Congregation Beth Ami, run-to-the-bimah speed) and her wit is every bit as quick. Not bad for a woman of 85.

But Rich is 105. And the joke above is almost definitely the best ever made by a 105-year-old since the dawn of time — though at her 100th birthday, Rich one-upped the master of ceremonies when he asked her what she had planned for her next birthday. She immediately replied that a highway would be named after her — "Highway 101, you've heard of it?"

"First of all, I was very lucky. I got good genes from my parents," says Rich when asked, as she invariably is these days, for secrets of her longevity. She was feted Sunday, Aug. 6 by friends and fellow congregants (the ones who could manage to keep up with her, that is).

"Second, I eat everything," she goes on. "I was never restricted. Lots of vegetables, chicken, everything that's good. I never smoked or took any drugs."

Another key to Rich's long life was the prescience to get out of Austria in 1938 ("I had a very smart husband").

In retrospect, the decision seems like a no-brainer (Rich and her husband, Henry, peered out the window of their apartment early one morning in the late 1930s and were greeted by a massive Nazi flag fluttering in front of the hotel across the road), but friends and family greeted the couple's move with disbelief and even ridicule.

"On January first of 1938, we went to the coffee house, like all Viennese do, and somebody turned on the radio. And on the radio was a speech from Hitler and he promised he will exterminate the Jews and hammer the Jews and the Jews and the Jews and the Jews," she recalls.

"On the way home, my husband said we wouldn't be able to breathe here. It was a terrible, terrible change."

The very next day, Henry Rich (still Henry Reich at that point) went to the United States consulate and applied for a visa. Since visas were handed out on a first-come, first-served basis, Jews who later realized the Riches were right were buried at the end of massive lines, and couldn't get out. When the visas arrived in August, Elsie and Henry's bags were packed.

In bustling New York City, Rich fit right in. She had a lifetime of experience working in textile plants and quickly found a job doing just that. English classes she took on a lark in Austria turned out to be incredibly useful. Before too long, however, the couple tired of city life, and resettled to then-pastoral Santa Rosa.

"In New York, I had to go on the rush hour to work. If you've ever been to New York during rush hour, they push the people into the car. And since I am rather small, I was hanging between people. I was not even standing on my feet," she says with a laugh.

So, she traded in rush hour on the downtown train for "seven steps down to [the chicken coop], and I could go upstairs to hear a radio program."

Rich is living in a vastly different world than the one she was born into in 1901; the biggest changes she could think of off the top of her head were "plastic, the zipper, the refrigerator, the microwave and the computer ... everything now is so simple."

She still remembers her two oldest brothers leaving home to fight for the Austro-Hungarian army in the Great War, and the hunger and chaos during their absence. And she still prays for a world where young men won't be made to slaughter each other.

"First of all, love your neighbor," she says. "And be good to yourself and your family. And keep on hoping for a better time and peace."