Indeed, the diminutive, impeccably groomed woman has put a can-do outlook to work throughout her life. She began an award-winning writing career in her 70s and learned to use the computer at 93.

The Lazzeronis are a writing family. Lazzeroni's husband of 58 years, Fred, was very romantic, writing her daily love notes.

"He would leave them under my coffee cup in the morning, on the refrigerator, everywhere," she says. And her daughter, Jackie Cathcart, is a published novelist.

Born in San Francisco to a French immigrant family, Lazzeroni was little more than a year old when the San Francisco earthquake hit and wiped out the family's home. They moved to Oakland where her mother opened a successful grocery store. Lazzeroni attended Marian Manson Business College in Oakland and worked as a private secretary in San Francisco's Mills Building.

"That was before the Bay Bridge," she says. "You had to take a train and then a ferry to San Francisco. It was a long trip."

Lazzeroni married her husband in 1927.

After living in San Jose for a short time, a promotion took her family back to Oakland until her husband's retirement, after which they moved to the South Bay to be near their daughter.

It was her daughter's suggestion that Lazzeroni join a local writing group. "One day I had the courage to read a story I wrote to the group," Lazzeroni says. "Several people suggested I send it to the confession magazines. When I did, the editor wrote back and said, 'Send more.' "

That's how Lazzeroni became the author of tales like "A Wrong Number Brought Me the Right Man" and "My Special Delivery Romance."

She took her ideas from real life. "I would hear a piece of a conversation, say at the fish market or on the street, and turn it into a story," she says. She says the stories were all fiction and most had happy endings.

Lazzeroni also wrote for Family Digest and several retirement magazines. "I was retired myself, so that made me something of an expert," she says.

Even a bout with cancer was raw material for Lazzeroni's writing. And her pioneering efforts included a mastectomy fashion show for a cancer society and many published articles on breast cancer. Her accomplishments were recognized by the National League of Pen Women in 1975.

Lazzeroni put down her pen more than 15 years ago. And while she misses the volunteer work that once also occupied much of her time, she learned how to use a computer at the age of 93 and stays connected that way. "I love people. Period," she says.

"The most important thing about living a century," she says, "is keeping my spirits up. I have an optimistic outlook and that helps a lot."