Esteline “Estie” Moe, who has lived in Alaska since 1947, turned 103 this summer, celebrating her birthday with neighbors and family. When asked what the key to a long life is, she simply says, “You have to milk cows.” Estie was raised on a farm in northern Minnesota, the eldest daughter in her family, and did chores alongside her father and two brothers. With 40 cows on the farm, she would milk ten cows every morning before breakfast and every night after school, shovel manure, and stack hay.
Like other rural families in those days, her family used a “biffy,” or outhouse, pumped their own water, and cooked on an oil stove. She says that upbringing prepared her well for life in Alaska. Later, while working as a waitress in Minneapolis, Esteline met her husband Alvin. It didn’t take him long to figure out that she was a keeper. Shortly after they were married, he was sent overseas for military service. She joked, “we had 40 days and 40 nights together, and then he was gone.”
Alvin was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean for almost three years. During that time, Estie roomed with his female cousins and continued working. She lived on her earnings, saving her husband’s monthly paychecks. Eventually those savings would pay for their first house in Anchorage. When Alvin returned, he asked his wife where she wanted to live. When she replied, “anywhere but northern Minnesota!” he suggested, “how about Alaska?” and she agreed-“but only for two years.”…