'There's no secret to it': Tucson woman just celebrated her 109th birthday

Vesta Toller was alive before Arizona became a state.

She was alive during World Wars I and II and the civil rights movement.

Although she didn’t watch TV much, she remembers watching the 1969 moon landing.

And she’s seen the century’s massive growth in technology firsthand — “It has its good and bad sides,” she said.

Fast forward many years, Toller is now living in Tucson after growing up in Colorado and living in New Mexico for most of her life. Last week, on Dec. 30, she turned 109 years old.

It’s unknown if she’s the oldest person in Pima County.

One of Toller’s earliest memories was visiting mining camps with her father, who was a doctor. She watched him tend to various injuries, mostly in the Four Corners area.

Her father would sometimes bring one of his 12 children along on medical calls. Toller was about 10 at the time.

“It was nice for him to let me go along and be there and see what happened,” she said.

They would take his horse and buggy to get to and from the calls — her father would rather walk or ride his horse because he didn’t like cars. In fact, Toller said her father didn’t think cars would last very long.

Sometimes, her father would even fall asleep in the buggy, said Molly Mahoney, one of Toller’s two grandchildren. But the horse knew the way home.

“Most of (the camps) were underprivileged and he was very much concerned about underprivileged people,” Toller said, adding that’s a virtue he passed on to her.

“I think having a doctor as my father helped make me what I was,” Toller said. “Because even though he was really busy, he always took time to talk to us and try to help us as much as he could when he was at home.”

But Toller didn’t go into the medical field.

Instead, she went to college and received her teaching certificate in Colorado.

“I liked to help (my father), but I wanted to be a teacher,” she said.

She taught various subjects — her favorite being math — to junior high schoolers for several years.

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Eventually, she met and married her late husband, Charles Toller. They were married for more than 60 years and had three children. Charles Toller died at the age of 92.

The Tollers spent most of their lives in Raton, New Mexico, where Charles served some time as mayor, Mahoney said. He also owned a car dealership — Toller Pontiac.

“If you drive by the building, you can still see the faded sign,” Mahoney said.

Toller did much of the accounting for the dealership and for the miners hospital. She was also known to help in her neighborhood — especially widows who needed assistance with their bookkeeping.

For much of her life, Toller was also heavily involved in her church — volunteering with the children and teaching Sunday school.

Since Toller lived in New Mexico, her two grandkids — who are from Colorado — would spend a week or two with her in the summers.

Toller and her husband also owned a cabin in San Luis Valley, where they spent a lot of their time.

Mahoney said Toller loved the outdoors, hiking and “being with us kids.”

After her husband died and after living alone for some time, Toller, age 98 at the time, moved back to Colorado to live with her sister, Ida Sue Pachroek.

When Mahoney was younger, she said she remembers Toller, Pachroek and a third sister, Mabel Manion, turning on the radio and dancing the Charleston. In another instance, the three sisters were caught napping together at Mahoney’s sister’s wedding.

“They remained very, very close the entirety of their lives,” Mahoney said.

When Pachroek died, Toller was around 102. She then moved to Tucson to live with her son, who died last year. Toller’s other son died at a young age and her daughter died in a car crash in 1979.

“I think the biggest thing (for Toller) was maintaining the family connection after my mom passed,” Mahoney said. “My dad did remarry and that can sometimes be difficult when staying in touch, but (Toller) always maintained that.”

Toller lives in a local assisted living home, where many of her son’s friends visit her, in addition to other friends of her children who live in Raton. Toller says she enjoys Tucson.

Since Toller spent much of her life working with children, she said she hopes that there’s more of a chance for younger people to “give their own ideas” in the future.

As for her secret to how she’s made it to 109: “There’s no secret to it. It comes naturally,” she said.