POST FALLS - Ila Aiken has a way with words.

The Post Falls woman, who celebrated her 102nd birthday on Friday at Garden Plaza, wrote "A Treasury of Memories Captured in Poem" and several songs.

"I'm legal," Aiken said of her age. "It doesn't seem like it's me. I feel great."

Phyllis Manley, Aiken's daughter, said her mom has always had a creative mind that's been evident with everything from her poems to crocheting.

"She can do anything she puts her mind to," Manley said.

The spunky Aiken, one of 10 children, credits making it to 102 to her faith and lifestyle.

"I have a relationship with my God," she said. "God is my help in every need. And I don't and I don't smoke. My mom also lived to 100, so we've got good genes."

Aiken, the mother of four, has never had an operation or a broken bone until a recent fall caused a hip injury. She has lived in Post Falls for the past nine years and before that Spokane. She served on election boards in both cities.

Aiken enjoys making quilts, Barbie doll clothes, hats out of beer and pop cans and various linens. Her Barbie wedding dress and other doll clothes won several ribbons at the Spokane Interstate Fair, which she proudly displays on her living room wall.

"I didn't have a doll, so I thought I'd pamper her," Aiken said, pointing to the Barbie and the dress on her chest of drawers. "That fair has been really good to me."

She's also proud of her popcorn pattern bedspreads.

"I've got two of those," she said with a wide smile.

Prior to moving to Spokane in 1964, Aiken owned a grocery store in Drummond, Mont.

"I ran it alone, so I was sure glad to sell it and get out of there," she said.

Manley said the family would move three or four times a year due to construction jobs. It lived in a school bus that was converted into a motor home.

"We had a little chest of drawers in the motor home and each of us children had one drawer to put all our personal items in," Manley said.

Aiken's book of poems features her experiences in life, including the years of moving around the country.

The poems talk about her times in different locations, including Flathead Lake and Fort Peck in Montana and near the ocean. They also recount significant events in history, including the attack on Pearl Harbor and setting foot on the moon.

In her poem "Daydreams," Aiken takes a step back to ponder life.

"So instead of seeing life all black and white, and swimming against the tide," she wrote. "Just let go and take flight, and take it all in stride."