PLUMMER - Eighty seven-year-old Grace Mitchell drives all over the countryside around Plummer. It's no problem, she said, she's been blessed with the ability to do so.

She drove to St. Maries to pick up a friend for Sunday service at Plummer Bible Church, where she's been going for more than 30 years.

Mitchell was a former logging truck driver. She worked with her late husband, Jim Mitchell, who died in 1991.

"I did everything in logging, but Jim wouldn't let me fell a tree," she recalls.

She's been helping others for a long time, and regularly. She many times has had to drive around to pick up the kids in her Sunday school classes.

"I teach primary Sunday school, because the other kids are smarter than me," she joked.

She's the matriarch of the congregation, which turned 100 years old this year along with the city of Plummer.

It's a city she loves.

"I wouldn't think of living anywhere else," she said. "You live in a big city, you don't know your neighbors."

The church celebrated the century milestone on Sunday, with a special service that included a sermon by former longtime Pastor Stan Primer, a big potluck lunch, and live country and bluegrass music.

Kids played some throwback games like bobbing for apples, three-legged races, and hull-gull (a guessing game using beans).

Many of the congregants wore period costumes.

Pastor Dave Donnerberg said 16 people and their family members established the congregation exactly 100 years ago this fall. Today, there are about 60 people in the congregation.

"We're 100 years old, but half the people in our congregation are kids," he said.

Mitchell, a mother of seven and grandmother of 30, has lived in Plummer since 1944.

Peggy Blackburn has lived her entire 67 years in Plummer, and has been a member of the congregation that entire time.

"I sang my first solo here at age 4," Blackburn said. It was "Away in a manger."

"I've been singing (at church) ever since," she said.

Janice Bueckers, of Loon Lake, Wash., said the city of Plummer has been an important part of her life. Her grandparents Ben and Goldie Heriford, whom she was close to, began living in Plummer in 1912, two years after the city was established.

Bueckers attended Bible and Sunday school at the church in the 1950s.

"It's fun to see all the changes that have been made," she said.

She makes the two-hour drive regularly to visit friends.

"Plummer - these people are my family," she said.

Eldon and Mary Ann Shaw, who were married at the church in 1947, attended the congregation's celebration. They live near Tensed.

Eldon, 87, said the church is an important place to them, as is the city.

"It's where we started out," said Mary Ann, 78.

"It's probably where we'll end up," he said.