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Current Issue Links
Emily Wight — 100 years young
and still sparkling
and still sparkling
“I always figure you’re only going to get back as
good as you send, and by golly you better get out
there and spread a word of cheer or something to
somebody everyday.”
That’s the advice Ridgecrest resident Emily
Wight has to offer at age 100 — good advice for
anyone.
Emily moved here three years ago, at the age of
97. Her son, William, his wife Charlene “Charlie”
and their son Billy helped Emily settle into High
Desert Haven where she became the residents’
council meeting president.
She also volunteered as exercise leader and
still leads residents in a half-hour morning exercise
class five days a week. “It’s important to stay active,”
she said. “I learned that if I walk around the building
five times, it measures a mile.”
A seasoned athlete, Emily has recently added a
wheeled walker to her exercise routine that allows
her to sit and rest in between her walking. “I have a
bad knee. I walk until it hurts and then I quit. I try to
keep active.”
Born June 27, 1909, Emily spent a happy early
childhood in New Haven, Conn. Then her father
relocated his small family to sunny Florida. He and
a partner had big ideas of turning a swamp into a
cauliflower farm.
good as you send, and by golly you better get out
there and spread a word of cheer or something to
somebody everyday.”
That’s the advice Ridgecrest resident Emily
Wight has to offer at age 100 — good advice for
anyone.
Emily moved here three years ago, at the age of
97. Her son, William, his wife Charlene “Charlie”
and their son Billy helped Emily settle into High
Desert Haven where she became the residents’
council meeting president.
She also volunteered as exercise leader and
still leads residents in a half-hour morning exercise
class five days a week. “It’s important to stay active,”
she said. “I learned that if I walk around the building
five times, it measures a mile.”
A seasoned athlete, Emily has recently added a
wheeled walker to her exercise routine that allows
her to sit and rest in between her walking. “I have a
bad knee. I walk until it hurts and then I quit. I try to
keep active.”
Born June 27, 1909, Emily spent a happy early
childhood in New Haven, Conn. Then her father
relocated his small family to sunny Florida. He and
a partner had big ideas of turning a swamp into a
cauliflower farm.
By THERESA GOLDSTRAND
Special to the News Review
Special to the News Review
“They had to dig ditches to drain the land,” said Emily. “I remember riding on the back of a timber that
was pulled by a mule. We lived in a rough wooden shack.
“Somehow or another, they figured out the cauliflower farm wasn’t going to work out. It seems like my
parents had to write for money to get home.”
An only child, Emily loved to shadow her dad. She was just a little tyke when she learned to fish. Her
father cut a sapling branch and tied a string to it for her. When he caught a fish, he attached it to her line,
and she marched around the shore, proud of her fish. She’s enjoyed fishing ever since.
When Emily was eight years old, her father died of pneumonia at the age of 39. Her mother found work
as a nurse, assisting a doctor during a childbirth and delivery. As part of her duties, after the baby was
born, she stayed with the new mother for a couple of weeks.
Fortunately, because both sides of the family lived close by, while Emily’s mother was working, Emily lived
with her grandparents and had no shortage of relatives to watch over her.
“Both sets of grandparents were of English descent,” she recalled. “In 1918 I remember my
grandfather coming in one day bearing the British Union Jack and the Ameri-can Stars and Stripes, side by
side, declaring, ‘The war has ended!’ Then he posted them up on the porch. I remember in those days the
soldiers wearing those woolen leggings that strapped around their legs.”
Emily and her mother moved to Pasadena, Calif., in 1921. They arrived by train on Memorial Day, and
Emily was thrilled with all the decorations that she figured the town had put up for her arrival.
She always loved sports. On her high-school softball varsity team she was a nicknamed “Slugger.” She
graduated from high school in 1926, then attended Pasadena Junior College before going to a school of
nursing for two years.
A cousin introduced her to his friend, a tall, good-looking, blond fellow named William Gordon Wight.
After a short courtship, Gordon and Emily married in 1941.
“We were newlyweds when my husband and I were parked on a hill on the Ortega Highway, listening to
the radio in the car, when we heard the news, ‘Pearl Harbor had been attacked.’”
To help the war effort, the young couple volunteered as coastal plane watchers, taking four-hour shifts
from midnight to four a.m. They camped out in a little shack on a mountaintop, watching for planes. “We
had to estimate the speed, direction and distance of any planes that flew by. It was awfully hard to do it at
night. There was a submarine report off the coast too.”
Gordon’s father was a botanist, and the Wight family owned a large ranch and peach orchard next to the
road the led to Mt. Palomar, right along the San Luis Rey River. “When I got married, I learned to garden
and can. I used to can all our fruit until we got a walk-in freezer.”
The Wights had two children, William and Vivian. William is a design engineer working at China Lake.
Vivian, who has a degree in education, lives in Ajo, Ariz., and works for the National Park Service in Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument as an interpreter. She previously worked at Carlsbad Caverns for 10 years.
“We’ve always been an outdoors family, and we camped and fished all over the Sierras,” said Emily.
“We graduated from tent camping to a trailer, then to a camper on a truck, and then to a motor home. We
were rockhounds. We belonged to a gem and mineral club and would go out with them all over the deserts
and pick up rocks.”
Throughout her life, Emily said, she was blessed with good health. “I dedicated myself to doing all
kinds of civic things down home. When the kids were old enough to go to school, I started helping out in
the cafeteria.
“Eventually I drove the school bus and got involved in the school board. I started the Parent Teacher
Association for our little rural school. Many of the students were Luiseno Indians that lived on the Pala
Reservation above our ranch. I got involved in the secondary-school PTA group as my children moved
along. I was busy, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Emily recalled the good times the family shared. “My husband was a great one to try new cars when
they came on the market. We’d turn in the old one and get a new one. Once, we got a little old Studebaker.
We called it a fishbowl because it had glass windows all the way around.
“One summer we borrowed a friend’s trailer – it looked like a small Quonset hut on wheels and had
absolutely the worst wind resistance. We got the five of us — the two kids, Gordon and my mother —
packed in. There were four bunk beds inside. With the dining room table between the two bottom bunk
beds, we slept three on the bottom and two in the beds on top.
“We drove that outfit all the way to the Grand Canyon and back. That poor little old car was
underpowered, and we were towing a lot of weight. I don’t think that Studebaker was out of second gear the
whole trip.”
After their children were grown, Gordon and Emily traveled to Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Borneo,
Sumatra and Bali, to name a few. “Our favorite place was New Zealand — the people are so nice, and it’s a
beautiful country with fjords and beaches and mountains. But there’s nothing like the feeling of seeing that
flag of the U.S.A. and putting your foot back down on American soil.”
In 1987, after 46 years of marriage, William suddenly became ill and died. Emily lived independently
another 20 years until 2007, when she left Vista and came to Ridgecrest.
Like many other seniors, she had to make the tough decision to stop driving. “It was hard to give up my
driver’s license because it meant giving up my independence. But I reached the point that I couldn’t see
well enough to drive. Later, I had to hire gardeners, and a housekeeper, and then I was sick for a while —
so it was time to move closer to my son. It was hard to leave my friends, and PEO sisters and church of 50
years. But I love it here.”
Part of Emily’s routine is to keep busy. “Otherwise,” she said, “you sit and disintegrate. I could sit there
and feel sorry for myself. I like to greet people with a smile and a cheery hello. I’ve always liked people.”
The Braille Institute provides a book magnifier, so Emily has been able to keep up with her reading.She
also keeps in touch with a dear friend, Marilee Johnson. “There’s 24 years difference in our ages, but
something just clicked. I once told her, ‘You could be my daughter.’ Marilee told me, ‘I don’t want to be your
daughter. I want to be your friend.’ So that’s the way we left it.”
At High Desert Haven, Emily has found a wealth of new friends. “This is all my family now.” Emily loves
to play “Trivial Pursuit” and tell jokes — and she has some good ones.
With a twinkle in her eyes, Emily said, “That’s part of the secret. You’ve got to have a good attitude and a
sense of humor.”
was pulled by a mule. We lived in a rough wooden shack.
“Somehow or another, they figured out the cauliflower farm wasn’t going to work out. It seems like my
parents had to write for money to get home.”
An only child, Emily loved to shadow her dad. She was just a little tyke when she learned to fish. Her
father cut a sapling branch and tied a string to it for her. When he caught a fish, he attached it to her line,
and she marched around the shore, proud of her fish. She’s enjoyed fishing ever since.
When Emily was eight years old, her father died of pneumonia at the age of 39. Her mother found work
as a nurse, assisting a doctor during a childbirth and delivery. As part of her duties, after the baby was
born, she stayed with the new mother for a couple of weeks.
Fortunately, because both sides of the family lived close by, while Emily’s mother was working, Emily lived
with her grandparents and had no shortage of relatives to watch over her.
“Both sets of grandparents were of English descent,” she recalled. “In 1918 I remember my
grandfather coming in one day bearing the British Union Jack and the Ameri-can Stars and Stripes, side by
side, declaring, ‘The war has ended!’ Then he posted them up on the porch. I remember in those days the
soldiers wearing those woolen leggings that strapped around their legs.”
Emily and her mother moved to Pasadena, Calif., in 1921. They arrived by train on Memorial Day, and
Emily was thrilled with all the decorations that she figured the town had put up for her arrival.
She always loved sports. On her high-school softball varsity team she was a nicknamed “Slugger.” She
graduated from high school in 1926, then attended Pasadena Junior College before going to a school of
nursing for two years.
A cousin introduced her to his friend, a tall, good-looking, blond fellow named William Gordon Wight.
After a short courtship, Gordon and Emily married in 1941.
“We were newlyweds when my husband and I were parked on a hill on the Ortega Highway, listening to
the radio in the car, when we heard the news, ‘Pearl Harbor had been attacked.’”
To help the war effort, the young couple volunteered as coastal plane watchers, taking four-hour shifts
from midnight to four a.m. They camped out in a little shack on a mountaintop, watching for planes. “We
had to estimate the speed, direction and distance of any planes that flew by. It was awfully hard to do it at
night. There was a submarine report off the coast too.”
Gordon’s father was a botanist, and the Wight family owned a large ranch and peach orchard next to the
road the led to Mt. Palomar, right along the San Luis Rey River. “When I got married, I learned to garden
and can. I used to can all our fruit until we got a walk-in freezer.”
The Wights had two children, William and Vivian. William is a design engineer working at China Lake.
Vivian, who has a degree in education, lives in Ajo, Ariz., and works for the National Park Service in Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument as an interpreter. She previously worked at Carlsbad Caverns for 10 years.
“We’ve always been an outdoors family, and we camped and fished all over the Sierras,” said Emily.
“We graduated from tent camping to a trailer, then to a camper on a truck, and then to a motor home. We
were rockhounds. We belonged to a gem and mineral club and would go out with them all over the deserts
and pick up rocks.”
Throughout her life, Emily said, she was blessed with good health. “I dedicated myself to doing all
kinds of civic things down home. When the kids were old enough to go to school, I started helping out in
the cafeteria.
“Eventually I drove the school bus and got involved in the school board. I started the Parent Teacher
Association for our little rural school. Many of the students were Luiseno Indians that lived on the Pala
Reservation above our ranch. I got involved in the secondary-school PTA group as my children moved
along. I was busy, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Emily recalled the good times the family shared. “My husband was a great one to try new cars when
they came on the market. We’d turn in the old one and get a new one. Once, we got a little old Studebaker.
We called it a fishbowl because it had glass windows all the way around.
“One summer we borrowed a friend’s trailer – it looked like a small Quonset hut on wheels and had
absolutely the worst wind resistance. We got the five of us — the two kids, Gordon and my mother —
packed in. There were four bunk beds inside. With the dining room table between the two bottom bunk
beds, we slept three on the bottom and two in the beds on top.
“We drove that outfit all the way to the Grand Canyon and back. That poor little old car was
underpowered, and we were towing a lot of weight. I don’t think that Studebaker was out of second gear the
whole trip.”
After their children were grown, Gordon and Emily traveled to Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Borneo,
Sumatra and Bali, to name a few. “Our favorite place was New Zealand — the people are so nice, and it’s a
beautiful country with fjords and beaches and mountains. But there’s nothing like the feeling of seeing that
flag of the U.S.A. and putting your foot back down on American soil.”
In 1987, after 46 years of marriage, William suddenly became ill and died. Emily lived independently
another 20 years until 2007, when she left Vista and came to Ridgecrest.
Like many other seniors, she had to make the tough decision to stop driving. “It was hard to give up my
driver’s license because it meant giving up my independence. But I reached the point that I couldn’t see
well enough to drive. Later, I had to hire gardeners, and a housekeeper, and then I was sick for a while —
so it was time to move closer to my son. It was hard to leave my friends, and PEO sisters and church of 50
years. But I love it here.”
Part of Emily’s routine is to keep busy. “Otherwise,” she said, “you sit and disintegrate. I could sit there
and feel sorry for myself. I like to greet people with a smile and a cheery hello. I’ve always liked people.”
The Braille Institute provides a book magnifier, so Emily has been able to keep up with her reading.She
also keeps in touch with a dear friend, Marilee Johnson. “There’s 24 years difference in our ages, but
something just clicked. I once told her, ‘You could be my daughter.’ Marilee told me, ‘I don’t want to be your
daughter. I want to be your friend.’ So that’s the way we left it.”
At High Desert Haven, Emily has found a wealth of new friends. “This is all my family now.” Emily loves
to play “Trivial Pursuit” and tell jokes — and she has some good ones.
With a twinkle in her eyes, Emily said, “That’s part of the secret. You’ve got to have a good attitude and a
sense of humor.”
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Emily Wight reads a card as her son Bill (right)
looks on. Photo by Laura Austin
looks on. Photo by Laura Austin
