by Jim Boyle
Editor
Lorraine Kletzin turned 100 today, and she will celebrate the milestone birthday with her family on Sunday at Guardian Angels by the Lake in Elk River.
She says when you get to be this old, every birthday warrants a celebration, but there is no cause for gifts to be given.
“I don’t need anything,” she says.
She simply enjoys life, and, especially, spending time with her family.
For her that includes her three remaining children, her seven grandchildren, her 18 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.
“And I have two more on the way,” she proclaimed on a recent visit by the Star News to her apartment at the assisted living facility.
Centenarian grew up in Northeast Minneapolis
Lorraine Kletzin was born on May 11, 1924 to Otto and Alice Foell. The centenarian grew up in Northeast Minneapolis, where she kept busy as a youth. She remembers a simpler time, playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of her parents’ home on Summer Street.
She graduated from St. Anthony Catholic High School in 1943. Her boyfriend, Robert Kletzin, went into the Navy, and she worked in the office of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.
The sailor bought an engagement ring and devised a plan for his family to get it to her before he had to return to his tour of duty. He survived the war and returned to marry his fiancee, but many of his comrades did not return home.
He and Lorraine married in 1946 and bought a house on Taylor Street in Northeast Minneapolis. They started a family in 1947 and had four children together: Bob; John, who died on July 4, 2023; Patti Simonson and Tim. Lorraine states proudly she was a stay-at-home mom while her kids were growing up.
Her only daughter said her mom was artistic.
“She was great with drawing, ceramics, and painting,” said. “She could knit and also crochet. Later in life she did a lot of number puzzles, cryptograms and adult coloring.”
Lorraine says she has been blessed with very good health, pointing out that the only issue she had was with her thyroid and that was removed with surgery.
The Kletzins moved into a condo in Columbia Heights back in the 1980s when the house became too much for them to maintain.
Their son John, who suffered from Crohn’s disease throughout his life, had moved back home with them after being wounded in the Vietnam War.
Lorraine’s husband died at the age of 80 in 2004, and John continued to live with his mom, allowing her to live in her home another 18 years before she asked to be placed into a care facility in 2022.
John’s health had been worsening due to Crohn’s disease, and she didn’t want to hinder his ability to care for himself. He ended up with blood cancer and died from complications with Crohn’s on July 4, 2023.
By then, Lorraine had been situated in Elk River after her move to Guardian Angels in the winter of 2022.
“Mom was always very caring like that,” Patti said. “She always thought about others before herself.”
Visited Elk River as a child, Big Lake as a parent of young kids
She was surprised to have landed in Elk River. She said she has fond memories of being in the Elk River area, both as a child and as a parent.
“My godfather had a brother and a sister that lived here,” she recalled. “We used to go there and to a lake. I have no idea what the name of the lake was. It has been so many years ago.”
She remembers the town’s population being tiny and even fewer buildings in the area. “Now, it’s all built up,” she said.
As a parent, the Kletzins brought their kids to Big Lake where her husband’s family had property on Eagle Lake where they spent many summer days there fishing, swimming, running through the field behind the cabin, Patti said.
“We had a lot of fun,” Patti said. “It was just a shell of a cabin... and we had to use outhouses. Later on, when the kids were grown, our relatives built a more permanent home, and Mom and Dad visited them a lot.”
In addition to the outdoors, Lorraine and Robert loved to travel. They made trips to the North Shore in Minnesota; Copper Harbor and Mackinac Island in Michigan; Mount Rushmore in South Dakota; and Glacier National Park in Montana. They also traveled to South Carolina to visit Lorraine’s brother who lived there.
Asked what the key has been to living to be 100, she said, “I have no idea.”
She said she figured she would live to her 80s but has kept right on going after surpassing that decade of life. She does not take medicines like many of her peers, she said. She credits her longevity, however, to her mother, who lived to be 95 and was known as Grandma Peppy for her zest for life.
“I don’t know what gave her the gumption to live to be that old,” she said, noting that she had been bothered by arthritis. “I never thought I would live to be 100.”
At 100, Lorraine also remains playful. She plays bingo twice a week and is part of a bell choir at Guardian Angels by the Lake. She enjoys the staff and her nurses. She laments not being able to walk on her own, something she did until she was 98.
She still enjoys her phone calls and company as well as watching game shows.
“I like the ones that give you information where you might learn something,” she said. “I guess I am not too old to learn.”
Asked if she had a favorite, she said no, but noted she does not like “Press Your Luck”: “There’s too much hollering and screeching.”
Lorraine’s hearing “comes and goes,” but she still has the benefit of a sharp mind.
“I am glad I do have my mind,” she said. “I can have a conversation with people.”
There will be plenty of that going on tomorrow with the birthday girl at the center of it all.
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