Carolina Martinez Valdez turned 100 this year

and celebrated the milestone with her family at the Mazatlan restaurant in Madras. Valdez was born on Aug. 30, 1926, in Nuevo Repuebleo, a well-known neighborhood in the southern part of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She grew up with five brothers and a sister. She migrated with her family to Corpus Christi, Texas, at age 17. That is where Valdez continued living and eventually began raising her own family. Valdez and her family were migrant workers for several years, picking produce like peaches, pears, plums, whole mint, potatoes and beans. For this work, they traveled from Texas to California and then Central Oregon every year. In total, Valdez had five children whom she raised as a stay-at-home mother. She is also a Jehovah’s Witness and is regularly visited by people with whom she attends church. Valdez and her family moved to Culver in 1997, before moving in with her daughter, Irma Symons, after her husband’s death in March 2010.

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