At one point, the 80-year Sunnyvale resident perked up her delicate head—her tightly cropped hair neatly parted in the middle and her cheeks rosy with blush. Her son Henry, 85, of Sunnyvale touched her milky-white fingers. With eyes closed, her mouth curled into a smile as she squeezed her son's hand and vigorously ran her fingers, crowned with crimson-painted nails, across the familiar veins and wrinkles.

Freda, who has lived in the HCR Manor Care nursing home in Sunnyvale for six years and is its eldest resident, remains remarkably active for someone who has raised four boys, run a business with her husband, Mike, and was a longtime member of such groups as the Toastmistresses.

These days, Freda regularly goes to the recreation room. There the onetime lawn bowler can hurl a large rubber ball at oversized plastic pins placed before her on a linoleum floor. For the most part, though, Freda is as docile as she was on her birthday, Henry says. Her hands serve as her lifeline when she grasps loved ones or strokes dogs brought in by community volunteers.

Just six years ago, at age 98, Freda was finally forced to stop driving due to poor eyesight. Without a driver's license, Freda walked miles to go to the grocery store or attend Mass before she moved to a retirement home.

"She was a walker," says Vicky Kirkish, Henry's wife of 55 years, while visiting with Freda on her birthday. "She loved to walk."

Freda finally resigned herself to using a wheelchair two years ago because she fell a few times, though she never broke any bones, family and Manor Care staff say. The safety strap on her wheelchair was harder for Freda to accept. She wrestled with the intrusive strap until it broke, so the staff keeps it off.

Freda was born in Hancock, Mich., in 1897 and had four younger siblings who have all died before her. She was raised by her mother—her father stayed behind to work—in rural Machgara, Lebanon, until she was 14 years old. She was educated by nuns whose occasional raps with a stick to her hands helped instill discipline and perhaps sparked a force in her ageless hands. Freda later received her high school diploma after attending night school in her late 60s, Henry says.

Freda started working at age 14 in her father's grocery store in Michigan, where she fell in love with her husband, Mike, who died in 1975. They raised four boys, including Henry, Robert of Sunnyvale, Edward of Chicago and the youngest, Delano, 65, of Sacramento.

Freda and Mike came to Sunnyvale in 1922, and in 1924 they began their own business on the corner of Murphy and Washington. The store specialized in work clothes and dry foods until Freda and Mike retired in 1950 and Henry and Bob began selling Western wear. The business closed in the mid-1990s, and the building is now occupied by University.com.

The family lived for many years in the storage room of their approximately 5,000-square-foot business. The couple's love and teamwork were very apparent during those years, Henry says.

"There was a lot of give and take," Henry says. "They knew how to accept each other."

Freda and Mike moved in 1947 to a home they built in an orchard near Bayview Avenue. The couple nurtured fruits, vegetables and herbs in their garden, including apricots and walnuts. A faithful believer in home remedies, Freda's garden was also her medicine cabinet. She didn't see a doctor from the time her youngest son was born until she moved to a nursing home. If she or one of her boys had a stomachache she would give them some tea made with anise, or if someone had a cough she might dig up some comfrey root and stir it into some tea.

"Those older ladies had a wisdom of some kind," says Vicky, referring to women from rural Lebanon. "They always knew what to do. She's never been sick since I've been in the family."

In retrospect, maybe her remedies amounted to some type of magic potion that has kept her going for all these years. At the very least, the aloe she gleaned from her garden and rubbed on her hands has kept her lifeline smooth for 105 years.