A mature 10-year-old, Mary Kengor was tired of living with her parents and four siblings in a coal company-owned house with a dirt floor. So, when she saw a house go up for sale in Creighton, she knocked on the door and asked the owner to sell it to her father. Next thing you know, the Slanicka family from Slovakia was living in their own house.

Mrs. Kengor, who turned 100 Wednesday, still lives in Creighton. The fourth of Magdalene and Frank Slanicka's five children, she can remember taking lunch to her father by rowing across the Allegheny River. To heat the house, she and her brother Carl would walk along the railroad tracks, picking up coal that fell from the trains.

She worked all of her life, starting with watching ducks and geese as a child. She also worked as a cashier in a doctor's office and handled tobacco leaves in a cigar factory.

On May 22, 1930, she married Joseph A. Kengor and they had three children: Marilyn Cupec of Creighton, Marcia Brandt of Pleasanton, Calif., and Joseph Jr. of Youngstown, Ohio. Mrs. Kengor, one of the first women in the area to drive, ran Kengor's Market with her husband, who died in 1979 after nearly 50 years of marriage.

Mrs. Kengor was an expert in the kitchen, making nut rolls, waffles and cookies. Thanksgiving was her big day, but this year, she and her family enjoyed dinner on the Gateway Clipper and her first ride ever on the Monongahela Incline. The day before, she celebrated her birthday with relatives from as far away as California. She received birthday citations from Pope Benedict XVI, four U.S. presidents, President-elect Barack Obama, the Steelers and the Pirates.

She crochets with a fine needle, tends a small flower garden and enjoys ring-a-word puzzles. She has nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Now 100 years old, Edna Neild is a little amazed at how the world has changed since she was a child. She has witnessed the Great Depression, two World Wars and too many technological advancements to count.

"I never thought I would see all of this!" she says.

She was born on Nov. 26, 1908, in Gloucester City, N.J., to Alfred and Anna Marie Wolf. On Sept. 24, 1929, she married Leslie Neild and they had two children, June Baylie of Monroeville and the late Robert Neild of Beaverton, Ore. Mrs. Neild, a homemaker, lived in New Jersey until after the death of her husband of 56 years.

In 1996, she was one of the first residents of Beatty Pointe Village, an independent living community in Monroeville. She celebrated Wednesday with staffers and family, including six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. In honor of her milestone birthday, she received citations from President Bush, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, state Rep. Joe Markosek and Monroeville Mayor Greg Erosenko.