Centenarian Celebrations: Eva Oldendorp

Submitted by Jim Evans, Director, Northeast Region CRC

Eva Oldendorph, a Union Carbide retiree, turned 100 on September 25, 2020. Eva worked as a Quality Control Laboratory Technician at the Eveready Battery facility in Bennington, Vermont. Eva and her husband Walter, who died 26 years ago, had one daughter Lynn, and two granddaughters Rebecca and Lisa. Eva currently lives with her granddaughter Rebecca, and Rebecca's husband John, and children Evelyn and Linden in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Eva was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and raised on a small dairy farm where they grew tobacco and had an apple orchard. She was the youngest of four children of Russian immigrant parents. Eva married Walter Oldendorph in 1943 and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. They moved to Bennington in the early 1950s, where she began working in the Eveready plant there and retired in 1987.

Eva is in good health and owes her long life to a low-stress lifestyle and good genes (she says "she goes with the flow"). Her mother lived to 90, her sister to 101, and her brother to 96. It was a joy talking with Eva and her granddaughter Rebecca, and they were very appreciative of our recognition of her 100th birthday.