Two centennial birthday celebrations in the Lowcountry

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WTOC) - A centennial celebration in the Lowcountry!

Two women on Hilton Head Island are celebrating turning 100 and 101 years old this week.

A party was thrown Thursday for Irene Racine and Lyla Stocker. Both of the women are neighbors and friends. They live mostly independently in the Cypress in Hilton Head.

Stocker, a Buffalo, N.Y. native, was a Navy nurse in World War II. She was stationed in different areas of the world and the states.

She says she has seen so much and that it’s hard to take it all in sometimes.

Fresh out of the salon with sashes and tiaras, Racine and Stocker turned a corner and started a brand new century of life.

“They have maintained their sense of humor all the way through the century of life,” Cypress Home Health Director Karen Clark said.

Clark says these women are still thriving.

“They are amazing, so at 100 and 101, they actually have the minimal amount of care in their home right now. We just help them with their meals and basic tasks so they can maintain that independence,” she said. Neither really had a secret to longevity - and even though they enjoyed and endured the same ten decades - the two did so differently.

Irene raised three boys in Illinois with several grands and great grands. Lyla is a retired Air Force Colonel after serving in the Navy during World War II

“I was able to travel a lot. I was always attached to a military hospital; sometimes chief nurse. We had airplanes fly out from there; we had the crews to take care of. It was nice life, if you liked that, which I do, I did enjoy it all,” Stocker said.

And Lyla doesn’t mind letting her friends know just how old she is.

“I’m the oldest,” she said.

The two ladies’ healthcare team invited our very own Jamie Ertle to help celebrate!

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