Flint Native Celebrates 90 Years On New Year's Day
FLINT, Mich. (AP) - The Flint area's 1924 New Year's baby celebrated her 90th birthday on Wednesday.
Margaret Sponsler was born 20 minutes after the clock struck midnight that New Year's Day, according to The Flint Journal.
"It's always been rather special," the Flint native told the newspaper, which honored her birth at the time at her home in south Flint. She has lived in a retirement community in Chambersburg, Pa., for the past 23 years. She grew up on a farm in Lambs, Mich., and her mother died when she was 10.
"I spent some summers there with my mother," Sponsler said. "I have some very fond memories of staying there at my uncle's house."
She came from a large family, outliving 10 siblings.
"I'm the last of my family now," Sponsler said. "I have a couple more years to go and I'll be the longest living of all my siblings."
Her daughter, Carol Grosbier, 67, said she remembers as a child trying to stay up late to tell her mother happy birthday. She also remembers several other December birthdays using up available funds before the end of the month.
"By the time Jan. 1 rolls around, no one had any money to buy a present for," her mother, Grosbier laughed.
Sponsler doesn't see reaching 90 years as a big deal.
"I have a tablemate who is 96 and another is 101," she said. "When you put yourself up against people that age, you don't think 90 is very much."
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