HARLINGEN – “Oh, this is my day! I can tell you that right now!”
Hazel LaVerne Myrick’s firecracker energy charged every word, her festive attitude illuminating every movement. A steady stream of friends and relatives approached her table where they met a woman excited about life and love.
She was a woman full of enthusiasm, optimism and passion for the simple and the glorious, and why wouldn’t she be?
After all, she’s only 106 years old.
“Happy birthday, LaVerne,” said one friend.
“Thank you, honey,” answered LaVerne. “You look so pretty. That’s a pretty color on you.”
LaVerne couldn’t sit still as she greeted visitors to her birthday party earlier this month at Golden Palms Retirement Center and Healthcare in Harlingen. Her bright orange Hawaiian-print dress accentuated the quick fire responses to everyone who approached her.
“Oh, my God. Lay ‘em on the table,” she said as a friend approached her with flowers.
“They ought to be in a vase,” she said.
“We have a vase,” the visitor said.
“Well, it’s not big enough,” quipped LaVerne.
LaVerne’s quick-witted demeanor and festive voice lit up the room.
“I worked in a beauty shop. That’s why I’m so beautiful,” she said with a burst of laughter.
“I was born and reared in Oklahoma,” she said. “I played golf all the time, and before that I bowled all the time.”
Her warmth and excitement seem to have always had an effect on people.
Her step-granddaughter, Julie Byrne, spoke with tenderness of the joy LaVerne had brought the family.
“We were so grateful that she married my grandfather William Myrick after he was seriously injured in a car accident and lost his first wife,” said Byrne, who’d just arrived from Rochester, Minnesota.
“LaVerne came into his life with so much energy and just renewed his life,” she said. “I know my mom, her stepdaughter, is just so grateful for that as well.”
LaVerne quickly gave the late William Myrick, who died a few back, a grand new life. They explored the world together, and when they visited his sister and brother-in-law on South Padre Island, they decided to stay.
“We liked all of it and not the Island because neither one of us was crazy about swimming, well he swam a lot but I didn’t,” she said. “And so we both came down here and got a job and worked, and we liked it. He passed away several years ago. He had his own business. He was in the oil business.”
So how has she managed to keep her sharp mind and captivating energy to such an advanced age?
“Happiness! And taking things with a grain of salt.”
