HAYDEN — With her 100th birthday days away, Lilian Begg doesn't let anything slow her down.

She never has.

Growing up in Hampstead, London, during World War II, the Hayden woman spent many nights in the shelter dug into her family’s garden as underground protection from Germany's nightly bombings. 

“We just went about our lives in the mornings; you just had to had to keep going. As a kid you don’t really understand war, you don’t understand what’s going on,” Begg said. “They shut my school down for a year, but my mother wouldn’t let that go by, we studied at home.” 

In the mornings, she would look for interesting pieces of shrapnel in the street, and until she moved to America, she held onto her collection. 

Between the bombings and the anti-aircraft guns that would return fire, she isn’t sure how she slept at all during those years. 

“They'd come over London every night, of course,” Begg said. “My mother would give us our dinner and we’d go down there and then my father’s dinner would be in the oven and then he’d come down and we’d all sleep in the shelter until morning and then go about our business to school and work."  

After her sister died a couple of years ago, Begg was going through her sister's estate and came across a rude figure her father had found while digging, which became a defiant symbol of determination for her family. 

“After we put the shelter into the ground, we stuck this up on the top of it,” Begg said. “That was for Hitler," she said, gesturing to the taunting metal figure. “That sat on the top of the shelter until the end of the war. It means a lot to me because it was there.” 

At 18, the war was still ongoing, and she got a job with the government as a clerk's assistant, eventually working her way up to a clerical officer. 

“I used to work for the Minister of Defense and at that time, NATO was just starting out so the government lent me to NATO to help set up meetings and do work for them,” Begg recalled.  

When NATO operations transitioned to Paris as a base of operations, she went there for a few weeks. 

After the war, things didn't return to normal for a while. 

“I got married in 1950 and there was still food rationing then. We had books with coupons in it and between the family and a few friends, we saved up for some tinned meat and mashed potatoes for our wedding breakfast and that was five years after the war,” Begg remembered. 

Her husband, Doug, was an aircraft draftsman, and since housing was still in demand, they stayed with their in-laws for a while before finding their own place. 

Eventually, the couple heard of more jobs through the aircraft industry and set their sights on America. 

“We thought we’d try, so in 1960 we came over here,” Begg said. “All we had was a suitcase and a trunk and there we are. We went through customs and there you are on the dock, so we stayed at the Y.” 

They had just enough savings to tide them over as they searched for jobs in San Francisco. 

Doug got a job with Boeing, and they moved to Renton, Wash. She found a job at an insurance company in Seattle. 

“They talk about the American dream; it does exist for those who want to look and work for it,” Begg said. 

For three years, the couple was happy and started searching for a home. Then tragedy struck when Doug died.

“He got cancer in his thyroid,” Begg said. “Now they can probably cure you.” 

She returned to England for a time, but then felt called to return to America and find a new way forward.    

“It seemed to me like what we were supposed to do, and I got my job back at the insurance company,” she said.    

Three years went by, and then her life changed again. 

“I met a Scotsman (Bill) who had come down from Glasgow over to Canada and we got married in 1966,” Begg said. 

Through her second marriage, she ended up caring for five children from a previous marriage and a new baby of her own. 

“We had quite a hectic life,” Begg recalled. 

They lived on Orcas Island as part of a job tending estates, then moved to Santa Barbara. She performed in musical theater and a local chorus group as a first soprano and soloist. 

When Bill got dementia, she was told she couldn’t keep up with taking care of him, and they had to leave the job. 

Their son found a community in North Idaho.

“He said, mom, you’ve got to move up here to Idaho. I didn’t even know where Idaho was,” Begg said with a laugh. 

She likes her cozy home in Hayden and the neighbors who care about her. While she prefers Santa Barbara's weather, she’s happy here after retiring at age 80. 

Begg’s 100th birthday is Thursday, March 19, and her advice for longevity is to stay active.

“Have something to go out in the morning for rather than just watching television,” Begg said. “You’ve got to keep moving forward.”