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Edna Beryl Owens will celebrate her 100th birthday Sunday. She has lived in the area her entire life.

Monday afternoon, Edna Beryl Owens rounded the corner of the front hall at the Sweet Life assisted-living center in Shawnee, slowly making her way into the conference room, taking tiny steps behind a walker.

The 99-year-old, who goes by "Beryl," entered the room and oddly exuded a sense of youth that starkly contrasted her ailing frame.

"I wouldn't advise anyone to try it," she joked about growing old, proving that although she is days away from turning 100, her quick wit and humor are as young as ever.

Beryl, a longtime resident of the Edwardsville-Bonner Springs area, will be celebrating her 100th birthday Sunday, April 20. She currently lives independently at Nettleton Manor in Bonner Springs, where her granddaughter Kelly Cotter said she amazes people with her sharp mind and resiliency.

Displaying that strength recently, Beryl fell and broke her hip in February, but after undergoing surgery and then rehabilitation at Sweet Life, she's bounced back in time to have an open house for family and friends at her home in Bonner Springs in honor of her milestone birthday.

As far as her secret to living a long life goes, Beryl stated it simply: "hard work."

She was born April 20, 1908, to Washington and Harriet Purtee in Lenape, Kan., east of Linwood. Lenape, she said, was so small, it wasn't even on the map anymore. She was the seventh child of 13 and had the typical upbringing of a farm girl.

Beryl tells stories of walking up a hill to fill gallon-sized buckets with water from the spring for her mother to use for cooking and washing. She chopped wood for the burning stove and washed clothes on a washboard. She fed chickens, gathering the eggs and worked in the fields, baling hay. She remembers the age-old tale of walking miles through the snow and up hills just to get to her one-room schoolhouse, where she attended through the eighth grade.

It was that young life that she said made her who she is today, including staying healthy enough to make it to the age of 100.

"I think being raised on the farm helped," she said. "I always had enough food, got lots of exercise and worked hard."

It's not a surprise that Beryl's life on the farm was full of adventures. She said one day, she and her sister went to the orchard to hunt mushrooms. All of sudden, an old, grumpy sheep approached them. First, the sheep chased her sister up a tree and then he turned and chased her up a tree. The girls spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get down with the sheep running back a forth forcing them to stay put. Eventually their father came out looking for them, and when he saw what was going on he picked up a club to fight the sheep off.

"That sheep knew what was up then," she said. "He took off running. He didn't want nothing to do with that club."

Beryl eventually moved on from the farm life, but never forgot that work ethic she learned. She married Benjamin Owens in 1933 and had two daughters, Lois Hughes and Doris Leach.

Beryl spent most of the next few years raising her children but as the girls got older, Beryl eventually went to work at Kuhn Cannery. Later it became Richardson's Corporations and she worked in the lab, measuring the weights of the ice cream toppings in containers.

One of her greatest memories during this time was the friendship she maintained with schoolmate Inez Turpin. Through the years, Beryl said they always remembered to send cards for birthdays and holidays. That continued until Inez's death in 2007, but Beryl remembers the friendship fondly.

As her own children began to grow up, she started taking care of her five grandchildren. She said she was popular with the kids because she always made them milkshakes.

"I do ice cream like it's going out of style," she said.

Granddaughter Kelly Cotter said Beryl has always been the center of the family. As tears began to swell in her eyes, Kelly described the fond memories that remain today of playing in her grandmother's yard and then coming inside for her famous milkshakes.

"She was always about family," Kelly said. "She'd do anything for any of us."

As the years went on, Beryl and her husband started traveling. Every July the two would take a vacation that included places such as Colorado, Washington, Utah and Wyoming.

Beryl maintained her adventurous spirit through these many life experiences, but that didn't mean she wasn't without fear. One time she invited for the weekend to a boathouse at the Lake of the Ozarks that was owned by her daughter Doris. Reluctantly, Beryl agreed to visit the house, but only under one condition: "I get to sleep in my life jacket," she said.

Eventually her husband of 60 years died in 1993 at the age of 94. Beryl moved into Nettleton Manor in 2003 and has managed to live independently every since. Nowadays, Beryl fills her time with crocheting and books on tape. One of her favorite activities is rocking in her Boston rocker while listen to country-western music.

She said she didn't have any words of wisdom to share about living a long life, but added the first 100 years of her life have been happy and she just hopes the rest stay the same.

"I never ever thought I would have ever lived this long," she said.