Lucille Deborah “Debbie” Wilson, 100, gave a lot of thought about what she had learned before an interview a few days before her birthday Sunday.

“All in all, my 100 years have been varied and rewarding,” she said. “I will still try to make the best of every day for myself as well as others, whenever possible.”

Now a resident of Buffalo Hill Terrace, Wilson urges others to try to preserve the natural beauty of the world as well as to see the beauty in every day. She passed along the best piece of advice that she gave to her three children.

“Never use the word hate,” she said. “I wish we didn’t have it. There’s something good about everybody. We shouldn’t hate people in other nations. We should try to understand them. I guess that is kind of my motto.”

Born Lucille Deborah Sprague on Sept. 2, 1912, in Crater Lake, Ore., Wilson spent her summers visiting her grandparents on a homestead near Conrad next to the one that her mother, Majorie Nichols Savage, obtained in about 1910.

“My mother came to Montana first and set up a homestead, then her parents came and homesteaded next door to her,” she said. “My mother’s brother (Merle) came and helped their parents and they stayed.”

Her mother left Montana with her husband, Henry Albert Sprague, a lumber man from Minnesota who pioneered in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, then moved to Oregon. Wilson retains fond memories of her summer visits to the Montana homestead as a preschool child.

“Of course I was very young. I remember the fun of going with a horse and buggy and my grandfather into Conrad,” she said. “We always had doughnuts and cheese and apples to eat.”

She recalled that she had the chore of going down to the root cellar to take sprouts off the potatoes and onions. Her grandparents also trusted her to sort out apples.

“I tried to learn to milk the cow, but I don’t think I succeeded much,”  she said with a laugh.

Her Montana trips stopped when her grandfather died and her grandmother moved in with them. After a severe drought, her mother’s brother also left the homestead and joined them to work for her father, who operated a saw mill in Oregon and then in Washington.

“Then they had a forest fire and we lost everything,” Wilson said. “A friend gave him a position [at a lumber mill] in Port Angeles, [Wash.].”

After high school, she began studying social work at the University of Washington. As a sophomore, Wilson started working for the College Bureau of the exclusive I. Magnin & Co. department store to help her parents with expenses.

“It was tough going, and I decided that I’d better help,” Wilson said.

Although she held down a job while attending classes, she found time to serve as president of both Alpha Theta chapter of Alpha Delta Pi and of Tolo chapter of Mortar Boards. Also at the university, she met her future husband, James Weber Wilson, a captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

The two graduated in 1933, and then married July 25, 1936, in Seattle when Wilson finally left her job at I. Magnin to become a homemaker.

“We rented a house in Seattle on a hill with a view of Mount Rainier and Puget Sound for $15 a month,” she said. “On Saturday, at the end of the day, we would go to the farmers market and, for $5, we would pick up enough groceries for the week and carry them home on the street car.”

A year later, the couple had a house built on Magnolia Bluff in Seattle and had daughter Julie and then son Weber just 16 months later.

“Jim didn’t get to see him until he was more than a year old,” Wilson said. “He was called to active duty in charge of a mine sweeper more than a year before war was declared. He was gone in the South Pacific and we seldom heard from him or saw him.”

His last command was the USS Lyman, a destroyer escort. After the war, her husband earned a master’s degree in business administration under the G.I. Bill, and she gave birth to their third child, Harry, who now lives in Bigfork.

Jim’s career as a university professor took them first to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Wilson earned her master’s in social work, and then to Washington, D.C., where Jim became an assistant professor at American University. After he fell in love with sailing on Chesapeake Bay, the couple sold their Seattle home and stayed.

“Moving to Washington, D.C., was a great privilege because we enjoyed the history of the United States,” Wilson said.

When the children were grown, she took a six-month job as a federal parole officer for 90 female felons, and then worked 13 years as a casework director for the Navy Relief Society and a liaison to the American Red Cross. In retirement, she and Jim enjoyed living in a beach house and sailing on Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, Md.

“It was a great place to have the children visit,” she said. “At the time, we had eight grandchildren. Now we have 19 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.”

When Jim became ill with cancer, they moved into a retirement apartment. After his death, Wilson continued researching genealogy and became Maryland state president of the Colonial Dames of America and served as parliamentarian for the residents’ council at her former retirement campus.

After Wilson fell and broke her leg last year, her family researched facilities and chose Buffalo Hill Terrace assisted living, close to her son Harry and his wife Holly. She moved here in March.

“I think it’s absolutely wonderful, and I’m very happy here,” she said.

For her 100th birthday, Wilson wanted just to eat a Montana steak at Harry’s home on the Swan River, where she loves observing the birds, trees and wilderness. Her friends back in her Maryland retirement community threw a party in her honor and invited her daughter.

Wilson said she misses them, but she has moved all her life and learned to adjust.  

“Friends are forever whether you are with them or not. I always keep in touch with my friends. I don’t have so many to keep in touch with any more,” she said with a laugh. “But I have new friends — younger  friends.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.