VIDEO: Turning 100 with style: how Aldergrove’s Trudie Sharp celebrated

In between sips of champagne and orange juice, Aldergrove resident Trudie Sharp explained that she didn’t have too much to say about turning 100.

When asked what the secret of her longevity was, she shrugged.

“Don’t know,” she remarked, then amended her answer after her daughter, Barb, mentioned spinach.

“Well, I like spinach,” Sharp laughed.

Trudie arrived at friends Angela and Marcel Berleur’s house in Otter on her birthday, Saturday, March 19, to find the lawn covered with pink flamingos and a sign that said “Happy 100th Trudie – aged to perfection” with family and friends gathered inside.

“I didn’t expect anybody to be here,” Sharp said.

Inside, were letters of congratulation from the prime minister, premier, provincial opposition leader and Langley Township mayor. A letter from the Queen is expected to arrive soon.

Barb described Sharp as “a force to be reckoned with,” an adventurous, outgoing, second-generation East Vancouver native who moved to Aldergrove four years ago to live with her daughter.

READ ALSO: PHOTOS: Aldergrove birthday bash filled with 99 red balloons – plus one extra for good luck

Growing up in East Van, “everyone wanted her [Trudie] as their mother,” Barb recalled.

Trudie, a mother of three (Barb, Patricia and Larry) and grandmother of two, who is about to become a great-grandmother for the second time, is a lover of travel who has been through most of Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

She is a fan of live music, with concerts by Cher, Rod Stewart and the Righteous Brothers among her faves.

She was delighted with drag artists Carlotta Gurl and Bovine Miss M when she saw them perform for a seniors audience in North Vancouver a few years ago, and overjoyed when they showed up to provide an afternoon of musical entertainment for her birthday.

READ ALSO: Retired Langley minister ponders turning 100 years old

Trudie was born in 1922, the same year as Ava Gardner and Judy Garland.

It was the year the first successful insulin treatment of diabetes was made, by Frederick Banting in Toronto, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, upheld the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote, the year Gandhi was imprisoned, and the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered.