Celebrating 100 Years

The seventh of 10 children, Esther Wood grew up on her family's farm on the banks of the Columbia River outside Rainier, Oregon.

"I lived way out of town," Wood recalled in an interview with the Journal on Tuesday. "I couldn't do anything on my own without a ride."

But once she got off the secluded farm, Wood kept moving. She became a city girl during World War II living in Portland, conducting payroll in the office of the naval shipyard in Vancouver, Washington. She posed with Elvis Presley's uncle at the gates of Graceland in 1957, when the King was away, while on a trek through Tennessee. S...