From left, Ora Vardigan shares a big smile with her granddaughter Ashley Weber at her 100th birthday celebration party at Vango's on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Jenna Zdunek)

MARQUETTE — At 100, Ora Varidgan is the oldest resident at Mill Creek Senior Living Community and requires little care, her daughter Bonnie Miketinic of Escanaba said. The centenarian turned 100 on June 25, 2020.

Born on June 19, 1920, Ora May (Ray) Vardigan was the youngest daughter of seven children who grew up on a hobby farm in Cornell, Michigan.

Her father owned Ray’s Bar, which has since been torn down and turned into The Rusty Rail.

She met her eventual husband, Paul Vardigan while attending school. While he was just five years older than her, he was her eighth-grade teacher and was also a close family friend.

After eighth grade, she continued her education in Escanaba and lived with her aunt. Paul Vardigan would pick her up on the weekends so she could spend time with her family.

Years later, the pair fell in love at a midnight Mass during the Christmas season and they married in 1939 when she was 18 years old.

The couple would spend 75 years together until Paul Vardigan passed away at 98 in 2013. They raised five children together and would live most of their lives together in Delta County.

“I feel, and my mom also does, that the reason for her longevity — aside from good genes — is the fact that she was married to an amazing man for 75 years, who probably never even raised his voice at her. (He) just treated her with the utmost respect,” Miketinic said.

Though recent years have been difficult without her husband of 75 years, Vardigan is important to not only her family but to everyone that knows her, Miketinic said.

For the younger generation, Vardigan said it’s important to keep going, and “don’t lay around” waiting for something to happen.

“Don’t get too mad. Don’t think about things too much or hold on to them too long,” she said. “I have no regrets. I don’t think that way. I keep moving forward, never backward.”