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Niez celebrates 100 years of life
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| By: Amber Gieseke |
January 21, 2009 |
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Knapp Haven employees put together a scrapbook of Niez’s life as a birthday present. She enjoys looking through it and remembering the good times.
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Agnes Niez honored her 100th birthday last week in a celebration at Knapp Haven that she said "stretched from the first day, then to the second day, then to the third day, then the fourth day."
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She was raised in Pennsylvania where her father was a coal miner. She remembers that when he lost a finger in the mines he was told to get a new job, so they moved around for a while before trying their hand at farming just outside of Chetek. Once the farm got going, her mother went to Minneapolis, Minn., to work as a housekeeper. Niez was then left in charge of her siblings.
But it was not all that bad. She remembers meeting her girlfriends at a creek "on the next forty" to go swimming with them and her siblings. Because they didn't know how to swim, they would "swipe mother's pillowcases," fill them with air and use them as inner tubes to float down the river.
Once she was 17 she followed her mother out to the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. area to get a housekeeping job. She took a job with a miller named E.L. Phelps. She made $7 a week plus room and board and any hand-me-downs they no longer needed.
Niez remembers deciding she wanted more money, so she started dishwashing at a local restaurant, making $10 a week plus her meals. After a while she moved up to busing and waitressing so she could make $12.50-$15 a week. She smiles when she remembers getting $5 tips. "It was a nice restaurant," she says.
One day some people decided to go to Chicago, Ill., and she went with. This is where she met and fell in love with her husband. They decided to stay in Chicago, so she got a job at Dryden Rubber Company. She worked there throughout World War II and until she retired somewhere around 1950, she recalls. They then moved to Chetek, where she has been settled since.
But life was not all about work for Niez. One of her favorite memories is from when she lived in Minneapolis. She had heard Charles Lindbergh was going to be at the airport. She went because it was still when the "airport was quite small. Before you could lose yourself there."
She describes Lindbergh as a tall, skinny Swede. Niez recollects him asking her if she were Polish. She says her answer was, "No! I'm American."
Niez gets involved in many things around Knapp Haven. She loves to play bingo and bean bags. She recalls that she used to be "glued to that TV" when "Days Of Our Lives" was on.
One of her favorite meals is meatloaf, and she remembers when she would go out to restaurants to eat it. She likes the movie "Gone With the Wind."
She plans on being around for a few more years because she still will not drink coffee due to her belief that she is too young for it. She does not plan on sticking around just to drink coffee, but offered to tell more about herself when she gets to 200 years old.
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©The Chetek Alert 2010
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