More than a year ago, when I interviewed 100-year-old Lisa Blomdahl, she pedaled her stationary bike and walked on her treadmill in her exercise room overlooking Chehalis to show what a healthy centenarian can do to stay active.
Asked about the secret to her longevity, the soft-spoken petite woman with a delightful Swedish accent replied: “Believe in God.” She told me, “God is the same. God doesn’t change. What I have to look for is God.”
I like to think she rests in God’s warm embrace now after her July 20 death at the age of 101-and-a-half, reunited with her husband of nearly 55 years, George, who died in 2008. She leaves behind two grown children, Dave Blomdahl and Anne Peterson, five grandchildren — Kurt, Daniel, Jacob, Eric and Elizabeth or “Lisa” — a great-granddaughter, Emma, named in her honor, and a great-grandson, Owen.
A celebration of her long, rich life begins at 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 18, at Grace Church at 1866 S. Market Blvd., Chehalis.
In addition to her family, Lisa leaves behind a legacy of deep and lasting friendships with people who admired her kind, gentle, gracious demeanor and words of wisdom shared in a beautiful Swedish accent. She joined the St. Helens Club in February 1962 and the P.E.O. Sisterhood’s Chehalis Chapter AV two years later.
“When I think of Lisa, I remember a lady who was friendly, impeccably dressed, fond of her Swedish heritage, with an irrepressible twinkle in her eye,” said Vicki Pogorelc, of Centralia. “She was genuinely interested in you and what you were doing. She was a delightful lady and great member of St. Helens Club.”
“She really had style,” said Jean Bluhm, whose daughter graduated with Lisa’s. Their grandchildren also played in the band together. “We would sit in the bleachers and laugh. We had so many good times together.”
Clarice Stefon, of Chehalis, another St. Helens Club member and longtime friend of Lisa and George, remembered directing the first swing choir at W.F. West High School in the early 1960s, where George would snap photographs of their events. “I also knew Lisa from many years in PEO and treasured her friendship.”
Mary Metzger, another St. Helens Club member who began teaching at the Chehalis Junior High in the mid-1960s, met Lisa, who was serving as a parent chaperone.
“Lisa was always an enthusiastic parent with school events,” she said. “Oh, how she loved her two children. She was also a very kind and loving friend. I can hear her voice and will carry her memory in my heart forever.”
In early 2022, Barbara Mason, of Chehalis, described Lisa as an inspiration for half a century. “Despite her petite stature, she is a very strong person,” she said. “Her faith, her family and friends are uppermost in her life. Her Scandinavian style never waivers in the decor of her home. Her optimistic attitude is a gift she shares with all.”
I met Lisa decades ago as a Daily Chronicle reporter. She served as gracious hostess at parties she and George hosted in their beautiful home and renewed our friendship more recently in the St. Helens Club.
But I’ll always remember Lisa for a comment she shared with me at the 90th birthday party for our friend Pearl Miller. I had recently started writing this newspaper column, and she grasped both my hands in hers and brought tears to my eyes as she said, “Thank you for putting God back in the newspaper.”
Lisa was born Jan. 11, 1922, to Axel and Johanna Petterson and raised in a family of 10 children near the small fishing village of Brantevik, Sweden, with a bedroom overlooking the Baltic Sea. After finishing school at 17, she started working as a cashier at the bank in the Royal Postal Department Sweden. She was promoted to supervisor and sorted mail — and still received a pension from Sweden decades later.
She recalled the night she met George during a New Year’s Eve visit to their small Baptist church in 1946. As she strummed the guitar and sang in an angelic voice, she captured the heart of the Seattle evangelist and Army veteran who was touring his parents’ homeland while attending Bible College in Stockholm. They dated before he returned to the States to study photojournalism at the University of Washington. He returned to Sweden two more times during the next seven years before persuading her to marry him and emigrate to the United States. They were married July 25, 1953, in a Lutheran church in Malmö and, with a guitar strapped on her back bearing two hearts — one for Sweden and the other for the United States — she traveled with George to 17 countries in Europe for their honeymoon. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Kungsholm and arrived on May 26, 1954, in New York, where she was processed through the immigration station at Ellis Island.
When George was hired at The Daily Chronicle in July 1954, they settled in Chehalis, where they raised their family. Anne said her parents had “a wonderful marriage.”
Lisa, a woman of indomitable strength, survived colon cancer and a heart valve replacement in her late eighties but bounced back and declared her health at 100 was better than it had been at 75.
“She was indeed an inspiration to so many — bright, cheerful, welcoming, caring to all she encountered right to the end,” said Jenny Kirk, a friend for a quarter of a century and fellow PEO and St. Helens Club member. She described her as “a mentor to me in growing old gracefully and accepting her leaving this world with assurance that she would live a beautiful life in eternity with loved ones and new friends.”
Lisa’s rich life epitomized resilience, courage, love and faith — a century-long symphony resonating in the hearts of those she left behind.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
