COEUR d’ALENE — Irene Pierce does not care for the spotlight.

Not even on her 101st birthday.

“I do not like to be the center of attention. My birthday is just another day,” she said Thursday.

Despite her claims she didn’t lead a particularly interesting life, Pierce sat down in the Coeur d’Alene home where she lives with her daughter and for 40 minutes, she talked. About her childhood. An abusive aunt. Her loving husband. Her precious family. And her secrets to staying strong and sharp.

“I like to talk. I guess you know that. That’s what I did back home,” Pierce said. “I had a lot of friends. We talked all the time. We went out every day, either breakfast, lunch or dinner. I had friends in three churches there.”

"There" is San Jacinto, Calif., the place she called home for 25 years before moving to Coeur d’Alene five years ago.

Not willingly.

“We brought her up here kicking and screaming,” said her daughter, Eileen Tapia.

Her mom doesn’t deny it.

“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like to do,” she added.

While Pierce loves living with family, she’s not wild about North Idaho’s winters.

“I still don’t like it. If I had friends, I guess I would,” she said. “I don’t even have neighbors I can have coffee with.”

It’s not the coffee that matters to her. It's people.

“That’s just a means of friendship,” she said.

Pierce is unlike your average 101-year-old. She holds fiercely to her independence. She stands and walks without assistance. She fixes her gaze on you. She speaks her mind. She is friendly, but not one for nonsense. She has a quick wit and a relaxed demeanor.

“We get to brag about her,” said her daughter, Phyllis Pierce. “There’s not a lot of people her age who can do the things she does. I’m really proud of her."

Her mom recalls stories, though perhaps not as easily as she once did.

“You can’t remember everything when you live 100 years,” she said.

She remembers enough.

Hers was not a happy childhood.

For that, in ways, she is thankful.

“You can’t have all good and no bad. You've got to have the bad along with the good,” Pierce said. “Actually, I’m proud I had the bad as well. I’m glad I didn’t have all good. For one thing, it makes you tougher, if you have some bad.”

Irene Elizabeth Pierce was born March 9, 1922. She was one of three children in a family growing up on a farm in Texas.

Her mother died when she was 7 years old, leaving her and her sister, 5, and brother, 9, with their father.

The three children were often home alone.

“My dad was not very dependable,” Pierce said. “He didn’t do too good a job.”

She described her dad as a good man, but “he was kind of like a man who never grew up.”

It wasn’t long before authorities stepped in, perhaps alerted by neighbors.

“It was not a good situation, the way we were living,” Irene Pierce said.

They were placed with an uncle and aunt they didn’t know well.

“I was raised by a wicked aunt,” Pierce said with a matter-of-fact tone. “You hear of abused kids. I was one of them. But I think it made me tough.”

She believes her aunt resented having to take them in.

“It was kind of forced on her. She didn’t like that, I don’t think," Pierce said. "That’s my evaluation of it."

The aunt kept the kids busy, not in a good way.

“She was very mean to us," Pierce said. "She was just as good as she could be when people was around, but when they were not around, she wasn’t good. She found a lot of things to beat us with, like a leather belt."

“Not switches,” Pierce added as she smiled and glanced toward her daughters, Eileen Tapia and Phyllis Pierce. “That’s what I used on them was switches.”

Her daughters joked about how they didn't deserve it, but the other sisters did.

"She was a tough mom and we needed that,” Phyllis Pierce said.

“They were not bad,” Irene Pierce said. “They all were sassy. I remember that.”

Irene Pierce's husband, Alfred, served in the Army during World War II.

She shares a story about visiting her husband in a military hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the end of the war. She got lost trying to find her way to the bus stop to return to her room and wandered into a place with stern men with guns.

They stared her down and she was scared.

“I’m lost,” she told them.

“You sure are,” they told her, before escorting her out.

When she recounted what happened to her husband, he said with disbelief she had somehow walked into a holding area for German prisoners.

“Everyone, they couldn’t believe I could get down there because it was guarded,” Irene Pierce said. “Nobody tried to stop me.”

Irene and Alfred raised four daughters in Texas and then moved to California.

“I’ll tell you frankly, I do not like moving," Pierce said. "If I could stay right where I was born, that would have suited me fine."

Her husband was a truck driver, gone often, so Irene Pierce did much of the parenting.

She shared her faith with her daughters and they went to church most Sundays.

Faith is important, she said.

“In today’s world, you need it, I tell you," Irene Pierce said. "That’s my theory."

For 25 years, Irene Pierce led a Baptist ministry program that held services at nursing homes.

“They weren’t able to go to church, so we took it to them,” she said.

After 62 years of marriage, Alfred Pierce died in 2006. Irene's faith remains rock solid.

“I don’t have a church here," she said. "My church is on TV. I listen to Pastor Jeffers. If you’re ever at home, listen to him. He’s a good preacher.”

So, what are her secrets to a long, good life?

There are two, turns out, and they are not exactly secrets.

“Make sure you eat plenty of vegetables.” she said.

And the other?

Exercise.

“Don’t ever sit in a chair and watch TV all day long,” she said, then adding with a chuckle that is kind of what she does now.

“Do what I say, not what I do,” she said.

Today, she has 10 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

She tries to stay busy, but admits it’s hard. She used to sew and crochet often, but not anymore.

“I fell down on all that,” she said. “I should have kept that up.”

Her 101st birthday celebration was simple. Breakfast out with family — she loves crepes — then dinner in with more family that night.

That's how Irene Pierce prefers it. No need for anything elaborate.

"I guess I don't think about myself, what I do or what I don’t do," she said.

Her daughter said her mom is everything to them.

“She always looked out for us,” Phyllis Pierce said. “She had certain morals I think that we’ve adopted as well.”

She said despite her mother having an abusive childhood, without a role model, she was kind and loving, as was their father.

“They were wonderful parents to us," Phyllis Pierce said.

Irene Pierce follows that comment with this one: "I wouldn’t do to them what was done to me."

Asked if she had any life advice to share, Irene Pierce responded quickly.

“I’ve got a lot of it. But I think the most important thing is to be kind. Treat people fairly the way you want to be treated. Find you a good church. Get involved. Be fair to people and treat them right. Be a friend to a friend," she said.

"Back in my day, you could be friends with everybody," she added. "Not today.”

Which is too bad.

Because Phyllis Pierce would be the best of friends.