100th birthday celebration
Ida Flaaten’s family joined her at Eventide Living Center Saturday to celebrate her 100th birthday. From left: son-in-law Duane Fausher, daughter Karen Fausher, Ida, great-granddaughter Anica Damhof, granddaughter Rachel Damhof and grandson-in-law Wade Damhof. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

At 100, Moorhead’s Ida Flaaten is still going strong. Her family and friends gathered Saturday to celebrate the centenarian’s birthday at the Eventide Living Center, where she not only has lived for the past eight years but leads weekly Bible study classes and exercise sessions.

Born to Jens and Esther Olsgaard on their farm near Rustad, Minnesota, young Ida was drawn early to the teaching profession. She graduated from Moorhead State Teachers College and attended Lutheran Bible School in Minneapolis in the early 1940s. She went on to teach second grade in Gary, Fertile and Hawley, Minnesota. “They always gave me the difficult ones,” she chuckles.

After marrying Berthold Flaaten of Gary, she and her new husband moved to Warroad. There they operated the Red Owl grocery store for 21 years. Berthold died in 1995; that’s when she moved to Moorhead to be close to her siblings.

The Flaatens had two daughters, Eileen Lumley (husband Steve) of Eden Prairie and Nan, Vancouver, Washington. They also raised two nieces and a nephew whose parents had died — Karen (Duane) Fausher of Prinsburg, Minnesota, and Diane Whaley of Roosevelt, Texas. Nephew Errol died in 2020.

Ida has two grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and three great-grands. In addition to her classes at Eventide, she loves to read, enjoys jigsaw puzzles and, daughter Karen says, “does lovely embroidery on dish towels.”