Staff photo by Fritz Busch Oak Hills Living Center resident Joan Gerth smiles as she nears age 100 Wednesday. She turns 100 Thursday.

NEW ULM — An Oak Hills Living Center resident who received an award for being one of the greatest nurses in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, Area in 1998, turns 100 years old Thursday.

Joan N. Gerth celebrated her 100th birthday with family at Oak Hills Wednesday.

She still has a sense of humor.

When asked how she reached age 100, she laughed and said “it’s an error.”

Her daughters said she reached age 100 by walking often and eating right.

Gerth was honored at the 1998 DFW Great 100 Nurses Celebration at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. The annual event identifies and celebrates nursing excellence and promotes the spirit of the nursing profession in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

She was nominated for the award by Tarrant County (Texas) Junior College, where she taught nursing. Recipients are selected for being role models, leaders, community servants, compassionate caregivers and significant contributors to the nursing profession.

Joan Gerth was born in Wisconsin July 9, 1926. She married “Dud” Gerth in December 1944 after they met while both lived in Wisconsin. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942 at age 17. She began nursing training before they were married.

The couple lived in Minneapolis from 1946 to 1958. They had five children, Linda Brown, David Gerth, Pamela Smith, Kathie Pryor and Susan Gerth.

An air traffic controller in the Navy, “Dud” was transferred from Minneapolis to Opa Locka, FL., Arlington, Texas, Patuxent River, Maryland, Meridian, Massachusetts, and retired in Arlington, Texas, in 1963. Joan raised all five children during that time and did not work.

She later worked as a registered nurse in public health at a hospital in Arlington and with Planned Parenthood in Texas.

After all five of her children were grown and she was in her mid 40s, Gerth earned a masters degree in nursing at the University of Texas.

She began teaching nursing at the south campus of Tarrant County Junior College, now Tarrant County College in the early 1980s. She continued teaching even while taking care of her husband L. K. “Dud” Gerth who suffered strokes and dementia in 1984. With help from her daughter Kathie Pryor, Gerth continued to care for her husband until he died in 1998 in Texas.

She moved to Minneapolis later that year, purchasing an apartment at Becketwood Coop where she lived for 20 years until she was diagnosed with dementia in 2018.

Gerth wrote about her life in 2004. She said nursing was fulfilling for her.

“All my nursing experiences were fulfilling. I was doing what I dreamed of doing from the time I was five years old. My most unusual experiences occurred during my seven years as a public health nurse and my 15 years as a nursing educator,” she wrote.

Her favorite passage, one she often read to her students was “Making Contact” by Virginia Satir:

“I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.

“The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is sone I feel contact has been made.”

Her daughter Linda Brown and her husband Russ of New Ulm took care of Joan, moving her to an assisted living apartment at Orchard Hills in New Ulm before moving to Oak Hills Living Center in New Ulm as her dementia progressed.

Gerth’s daughter Pamela Smith described how she felt her mother stands out.

“I think her biography is noteworthy in that she successfully earned her degree and worked so many years teaching nursing, later in life, after all her children were grown,” said Smith. “Joan’s life offers a good take-away message and teaches a practical lesson that no matter how old one is, one can still fulfill one’s dreams.”