Alice Sophia Kuske celebrated her 107th birthday one week early on March 26 at Overlake Terrace Assisted Living and Memory Care in Redmond.
She was born in Lind, Wash., on April 2, 1908 to Ada Jones and Henry Herman Kuske. They were a wheat-farming family and Alicia and her sister and brother were always busy helping with the workload. The family eventually moved to Fort Frazier, Canada, but after the death of her father, Alicia went to live wither her grandparents in Alberta, Canada, and began attending school. After her mother re-married, she became one of seven children and the family moved to Bellingham, where Alice attended Whatcom High School.
In 1926, Alice married Rollie and they had one child, Betty, before they divorced. When Betty was 5, Alice met Howard August Stiyer, nicknamed “Red” because of his hair color. Alice and Red married in Tacoma but lived in Bellingham, then in Seattle, Quincy, Wenatchee, Kirkland and Redmond because they owned grocery stores across Washington state as well as a meat packaging plant where they both worked.
After retiring, Alice and Red travelled and gardened a lot. Some of Alice’s favorite places to visit were Mexico, Arizona, New York and Alaska. They were also very busy with helping care for the younger kids and grandkids in their extended family.
After Red passed away in 1987, Alice lived in Bellingham until 2011 when her grandsons, Ron and Don, asked her to move to Overlake Terrace Assisted Living in Redmond in order to be closer to the family. Alice’s current family consists of her two grandsons, three grandchildren, five great grandchildren, eight great-great-grand children and several nieces and nephews.
Alice has a very unique philosophy on life that she inherited from her mother. She firmly believes that “if you can’t solve a problem in 10 minutes, you might as well let it go.” Alice said that philosophy changed a bit as her Christian faith grew and now she “gives the problem to God, but that it’s the same idea.” Alice wants her life to be an encouragement to others to “live each day trusting God rather than dwell on the past or worry about the future.”
