At 107, lifelong South Dakotan shares habits that led to healthy life

This paid piece is sponsored by Avera Health.

Hazel Baumberger knows she’s a little famous around the Avera Parkwood Senior Apartments in Pierre. Rightly so: She’s 107, after all, reaching that milestone Jan. 29.

Baumberger was born during World War I, lived through the Dust Bowl, Great Depression and World War II, and so much more.

“My secret is simple: I like my family, and I want to be here for them,” Baumberger said. “I just look forward to seeing them every day they can visit.”

Sandra Griese is one of Baumberger’s nieces. She doesn’t disagree with her aunt, but she points out the generous spirit she has known for seven decades. “Aunt Hazel has been a rock for us for so long,” Griese said. “She’s been like a second mother to me, and she’s dedicated herself to family.”

That dedication kept Baumberger sharp. She documented her family’s history, especially its special “Bush Family Picnics” over the many years of her life. In doing so, she kept the records, images and other information so her many nieces, nephews and cousins would know their roots in South Dakota. She learned that her grandfather survived the horrors of the Civil War, including time in the Andersonville Prison, a notorious place in Georgia where many prisoners died of disease.

“Giving is a big part of her life, and she’s a great listener, whether it’s with me or her friends at Avera Parkwood,” Griese added. “She goes to the library there a lot; she gets around pretty well. And she is always talking to someone, making connections.”

In a sea of sod, prairie grass

Baumberger lived a long life on a farm west of Onida until moving to Pierre. At the time of her birth, farms were scattered among the rolling plains, and this windswept world shaped her.

With her five siblings, including twins, and cousins up and down section roads in all directions, she had a busy upbringing, walking to country school, helping on the farm and attending box socials and other get-togethers as she grew up. The family farm was 22 miles from town, and she remembered going there in horse and buggy as well as by car years later.

In her 20s, she attended a dance in Okobojo, where she saw a handsome fellow with curly hair. “I flirted with him, yes, and I hoped he was a farmer,” she said. “Until him, I never saw a man I wanted to marry.”

Turns out Art Baumberger was a farmer. They married Dec. 31, 1936, in Gettysburg at the home of a local priest.

She and Art shared almost 30 years together before he passed away. “We had a good talk after his heart attack, and he told me, don’t sell the farm,” Baumberger said. “And I never did.”

She stayed on the farm for many years after Art passed, then made her home in Pierre. She’ll celebrate six years at Avera Parkwood, a senior living facility, in September. “I still have a good life, and I like the people here,” Baumberger said. “I didn’t feel old at 100, and I don’t feel old now. I feel like me.”

Active lifestyle on farm

Baumberger recounts that she was “an outside person,” and of all the many things she did on the farm, fixing fence was what she liked most.

“I just liked it, being outside, the leather gloves and tools, and the fact when you moved to the next part, you could see how your work made it better,” she said. Baumberger said she only cooked when she was married “because I thought I had to.”

Her niece said her long life might be related to her hard work. “She was still rolling wire and working cattle when she was 80,” Griese said. “She loved that sort of work, in her hat and gloves, out on the farm.”

Another step in the direction of good health was her bicycling habits. “When my mother passed away, my dad bought a trailer and moved back to the home where I grew up in the country,” said Baumberger, referring to her parents, John and Mary Bush. “I lived about a half-mile down the hill on the gravel road. I’d sometimes make that trip, up and back, coasting on the slopes, four times a day.”

She was checking on her dad, and he was still thinking of her safety. “He’d always warn me to watch for rattlesnakes along the road in the tall grass,” she added. “As I would leave, he’d remind me to watch for cars at the gravel road intersection, especially when the corn in the fields was getting tall.”

Baumberger’s diet is another probable reason for her many years.

Active her whole life, with a good diet, kept her able to do work on the cattle farm or do things people half her age might not. At age 80, she walked the 10-plus miles, up and down, of the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills. “It was so beautiful,” she said.

She still has no arthritis, a loving family to see often and a spirit of optimism. She points in one direction most often when someone asks how it is that she has lived so long.

“It’s got to be God,” Baumberger said. “He’s been good to me, and he’s given me such a great family.”

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