Sitting in Nealie’s Skillet with a flower in her hair, while welcoming four generations of family members, Juanita Stockstill celebrated her 102nd birthday on Saturday.
Stockstill, who was born on May 20, 1924 in San Jose, New Mexico, was the third of eight children.
“I was very, very smart in school. My mother and father had eight children. They used to say, ‘Look at her, she’s got dimples.’ Both my mother and father both had dimples, and out of eight kids, only two had dimples. I had dimples, and my brother had dimples,” Stockstill said.
Stockstill grew up on a ranch, and went to high school in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
“My grandfather was a rancher, with maybe 150 people in the village between Santa Fe and Las Vegas,” said Hedy Toji, Stockstill’s daughter. “Spanish was [my mom’s] first language, and she learned English in school. She was in high school when World War II broke out. The government was recruiting workers because the boys went to work. She went to learn how to be a welder, and did it. She was a good welder. Then she got a job in Seattle.”
There, Stockstill met her husband, Billy, and had two children: Hedy and Pat.
“My dad enlisted in the Marines and was in the Battle of Tarawa — one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific [during the war]. He was shot, and was coming from a ship to land on the beach. He got shot in the leg, so he never made it to the beach,” Toji said. “They met when he was on leave and recovering in Seattle. They eventually left Seattle and moved to California because she had a cousin here, and my dad got a job at Borax in Wilmington.”
The family lived in Wilmington, and Stockstill raised her children while working as a phone operator.
“She worked long distance, and she worked information. They even did a training video and they used her. She loved working there — she worked until she had to retire. She was a hard worker — she never cheated anybody,” Toji said.
Stockstill lived in Wilmington until a couple of years after her husband’s death in 2006. Currently at Sunrise at Sterling Canyon in Valencia, she is now the oldest resident among her peers.
“She stayed in Wilmington for a couple of years, until we got her [to come to Santa Clarita]. Now, she’s in good shape, and as long as she keeps walking, I think that’s important. She is healthy — she doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke,” Toji said. “She misses one of the things she did as a kid: She would sing whenever there was a group or assembly, or would sing in church. I remember her singing.”
Stockstill was in great spirits, celebrating her day with those who mattered most to her: “I feel great. Glad that there were a select few.”
