By ERIK SKOPIL

eskopil@bellevuereporter.com

Edith Schmidt has experienced a lot in her lifetime, but one thing stands out above the rest.

Electricity.

Her friends around her laugh, but Schmidt doesn’t crack a smile. You see, it’s true.

Schmidt celebrated her 100th birthday July 14 with two other centenarians – Willie Mae Heath, 102, and Margaret Carlo, 101 – at the Garden Club in Bellevue, where all three women reside.

Born in Nebraska, Schmidt remembers a time when life was “less fancy.” She rode a horse-and-buggy to and from school as a child and caught catfish with her father in a creek in their backyard.

She recalls when she and her husband purchased their first television and when she saw her first car. Before moving in the Garden Club five years ago, Schmidt still drove on a weekly basis. Then she decided that she “better quit.”

She recalls a lot of other things too, and communicates them slowly and deliberately to her friends.

At her 100th birthday last August, friends were amazed at her ability to put names with faces.

“She sat in her chair and people came up and said hello and she never had to ask ‘you’re who?’ She already knew. It was amazing,” said Penny Grove, a close friend of Schmidt’s only child, Virginia Crowder.

“I feel older some days than she looks. And I’m a long ways from 100,” said another friend, Diane Cooley.

Schmidt remains active at the Garden Club, taking part in group activities and knitting quilts.

Each Sunday, Crowder picks her mother up and takes her to church, which Schmidt credits with her longevity.

Baptized, confirmed and married in the Lutheran Church, Schmidt identifies her decision to put her “trust in God” as her secret.