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Dorothy T. Withey Carroll, a resident of The Village at Greenbriar, recently turned 100, but she doesn’t feel old.

“You just have to be interested in life, and tell yourself you’re still young,” she said on Tuesday during a telephone interview.

Indeed Carroll, who served for years as supervisor of the art department for the Dallas School District, is interested in the world around her.

“I love the news,” she said. “I love to hear about everything that’s going on around the world.”

“She also goes for lots of walks around here,:” said Lynmarie Young, activities director at The Village at Greenbriar. “And she talks to everybody.”

If you ask Dorothy about her long life, a pattern of optimism soon emerges.

She was a young girl during the Depression. What was that like?

“We just went around, day by day. We kept a regular schedule,” she said. “We figured we were in the United States and it would turn out well.”

A few years later, she lived through World War II, on the home front. What was that like?

“It was very frightening,” she said. “But we had confidence in the United States.”

Dorothy is proud of the work she did for the Dallas School District in Dallas, Pa., and fondly remembers many students who keep in touch. One of them, who is now an attorney living in Dallas, Texas, sent her a bouquet of flowers for her recent birthday.

Born Dec. 19, 1920 in Kingston, Dorothy grew up in the Wilkes-Barre area. She graduated from GAR High School and studied further at Penn State University, earning a master’s degree from New York University.

She loved teaching, and remembers traveling from school to school to offer art to students in Kindergarten through 12th grade. “On Monday, I went to Trucksville,” she said, reciting part of her weekly schedule.

Dorothy has a daughter, Debra, who is an artist and art teacher in Wales. She also has a grandson, Tam, who is a student at the University of London.

The birthday celebrant has enjoyed visiting Wales and other countries in Europe many times.

“When I was in my 50s, and 60s and 70s I traveled all over,” she said.

Nowadays her vision is not as sharp as it once was, and she enjoys listening to music.

“We used to bring in live music,” Young said, noting that now the music is recorded because of coronavirus concerns. “We play everything from Big Band to Elvis.”

Dorothy T. Withey Carroll celebrates a century