LEXINGTON -- Carol Watson leaned over to Anna Geer and in a loud voice asked, "How does it feel to be 107?"
Geer's first response was a youthful giggle. Then she answered in earnest.
Watson leaned over again: "How old are you?" And with just a moment's hesitation, Geer answered: 26.
But if that were true, it would be 1928. Instead, it's 2009 and on Wednesday Geer turned 107.
Geer lives at the Watson Manor in Lexington, where she sat on her birthday with cake and ice cream in front of her, balloons nearby, paper streamers above and a lei around her neck.
She sits in a wheelchair, has trouble hearing anything less than a gentle yell and her full head of hair is a delicate white.
Still, she defies her age: she smiles and laughs regularly, she interacts better than many of her (relatively) younger housemates -- and she still can blow out her own birthday candles.
"She is always smiling," Watson, the manor's owner, said.
Her son, Paul Geer, 71, said his mom only takes one pill (a blood thinner for a clot in her leg) and the last time she had her blood pressure checked, it was a perfect reading.
"I'm not surprised," Paul said of his mother's old age. "She never takes medicine. She never really had anything wrong with her. She's a very happy lady.
"And she just believes God is going to take care of her." So far, He has.
Anna Geer was born in 1902 in Kansas and moved to Michigan about 67 years ago.
She was married to her husband Earl for 77 years. Earl served as a Methodist minister for years in Michigan and died at 100.
Geer is the mother of four children, grandmother of 15, great grandmother of many more and great-great-grandmother of two.
For years, she served in the church alongside her husband. Nine of those years were spent as missionaries in China.
At 65 years old -- when Earl retired -- Anna went to college and earned a nursing degree.
For 20 years, until the age of 85, she worked as a nurse, much of that time at the Marwood Manor in Port Huron.
