Local woman still feeling fine at age 100

Ivamay DiGiovanni’s friends describe her as 100, going on 60.

She became a centenarian Monday, celebrating the occasion at her son Delbert Polish’s Swan Lake home. She only recently moved into Greenwood Village Assisted Living in Kalispell.

“I been here two weeks,” she said. “My son decided that I’ve done enough work.”

She agreed that most people express surprise when they learn her age. DiGiovanni has the memory, hearing and looks of someone much younger.

People always ask her secret. She can only relate that her doctors say that never smoking or drinking played a role.

“My doctor said that’s half the battle,” she said.

DiGiovanni started life on Feb. 15, 1910 near Bloomfield, Neb. She was the fourth of nine children born to William and Nettie Bourn.

Her folks farmed in Nebraska until her father’s arthritis forced him to sell out and seek less strenuous work as a heavy equipment operator. The family moved back and forth between Montana and Nebraska as he worked on bridge and road projects.

When she was 11, the family returned to Nebraska for good but she ended up falling for a Montana boy, Matthew Polish, when he dropped in to visit at her parent’s house.

“I worked in town but that happened to be my day off,” she said.

Sparks flew and the two kept in touch for about a year. They married on June 10,1938, and left for a honeymoon in Yellowstone National Park.

They lived on the ranch he bought from his father in Beaverhead County, where they began raising a family that eventually grew to include Marilyn Jo, Bonita (Bonnie), Delbert, Dorothy May and Rosalie.

In 1944, her husband developed a health problem that require him to travel for an operation in Missouri so they sold the ranch.

“He didn’t want to leave me alone on the ranch with three little children,” she said.

After he recovered, the family moved to the Flathead Valley in 1946 where Matt worked on the Hungry Horse Dam project as a mechanic, a skill he picked up during his service in the Navy.

“He was the best father and best provider I could ever have gotten,” DiGiovanni said. “My folks really thought a lot of him too.”

She recalled how sweet he was on his little girls, teasing her that they all belonged to him. They worked as a team, raising the children.

“When anything came up, we would bring them in and talk it over with them,” DiGiovanni recalled. “We didn’t yell at them.”

She found great happiness, devoting herself to her family. She said she sent them to church and had them pursue their talents.

“My children are all musical,” she said. “My oldest girl (Marilyn Jo) took to the piano like a duck to water,” she said. “All my children are musical.”

Delbert plays the trombone, Bonnie plays the violin, organ and piano, Dorothy May plays piano and Saxophone and Rosalie plays violin and piano.

Epworth United Methodist Church benefits now from Rosalie’s  piano playing.

“She thoroughly enjoys it,” DiGiovanni said.

While raising her children, she said she didn’t belong to many organizations because she didn’t want to leave the children home alone. She said they came home for lunch from school even in high school.

“They liked to come home,” she said. “They ate what was on the table. I wasn’t allowed to say ‘I don’t like this and I don’t like that’ and neither were they.”

She raised them as she was raised and the formula worked out well since her children went on to successful lives and gave her numerous grandchildren.

“I just got a new great-granddaughter in New York,” she said with a smile.

For about 30 years, she and Matt lived in a house two blocks south of the courthouse on Main Street. Those good times ended when he was diagnosed with cancer and died not long after in 1971.

It was a difficult adjustment after a long and happy marriage.

“The first year is the worst,” she said.

In 1985 at 75, she married John DiGiovanni and enjoyed several happy years before he passed away in 1998. She was lucky in love as appropriate for a woman born the day after Valentine’s Day.

“Both men were good men,” she said.

She lived independently after John’s death until two weeks ago when she moved to Greenwood Village Assisted Living. DiGiovanni expects to enjoy her new life and make new friends there.

“I can adjust — I’m not like some people,” she said. “I don’t find a lot of fault with everything.”

Looking back over her 100 years, DiGiovanni said she wouldn’t change anything about the way she lived her life. She has no regrets that she grew up when women had few opportunities outside the home.

“My family is everything to me,” she said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.