By Steve Shay

A little over one hundred years ago, on Nov. 27, 1910, a baby was born in a Ballard home on the corner of 65th St. and 26th Ave. That house and that baby are still around. Now 100 years old, Hilda Krahn has a sharp memory and recalls the drama surrounding her birth.

"It was a Sunday night and I was due, so my father ran down into Ballard to get the doctor," said Krahn while among 90 guests at her 100th birthday party at Anthony's. "But the doctor was speaking in Ballard so my dad ran back home again."

So instead of the doctor, a midwife helped with the Hilda's birth.

"Then my father ran back to the doctor to tell him not to come. He saved $25."

Her Finnish-born father, Gustav, was a blacksmith and helped lay plumbing goes across 65th Street up to Woodland Park, where he and Hilda's mom would walk her and her younger brother, Bill.

"When I was two or three my baby brother was in the buggy when my parents walked us to Woodland Park, and I thought, 'Why can't I get in the buggy?' It was quite a hike up to Woodland Park," Krahn recalled.

"I've always done a lot of walking. My husband loved to hike up in the Olympics."

Alfred, or "Bud" as he was called, passed away in 1991.

"We went across on the High Divide, a 28-mile hike. We took the kids (Char and Ted) with our cat, Humphrey, and backpacked. We really did it the hard way. We'd go up to the lookout, and pitch our tent down by the Sol Duc River. They were happy days, really special," she said.

Hilda helped her husband sell pianos door-to-door in the late 1930's. They would tie one piano to the rear of their car, and pull another with a trailer. To make a sale, Bud would often lug a piano into someone's home to first see if they liked it. Bud was also a piano tuner and technician.

"My husband would get his orders from the store in Portland, and if he sold a piano he got $20," Krahn recalled.

When Hilda was five, her family moved to Kirkland. She was valedictorian at Kirkland High School and she would cross Lake Washington by ferry to get to Seattle.

She and her husband moved the family back to Ballard in 1951. They lived across from Adams Elementary School. Some may remember her as the Ballard High School secretary from 1951 until the mid 1970's.

"When I first got the job I was called a clerk, then a stenographer, then secretary," she said.

"Then, when I finally retired I became the administrative assistant. I had a wonderful faculty and student body, and I really enjoyed working for the principals, Aaron T. Vandevander and Pete Schneller, two of the nicest gentlemen. They were well-liked. My husband graduated from Ballard. My daughter Char (Tait) and son Ted did, too. They attended while I worked there."

Krahn and her husband enjoyed golfing in Oahu, and stayed at the home of friends while their friends stayed in Ballard - a sort of exchange.

They often visited Finland and Krahn has returned twice since her husband died. She and Char visited cousins in Rovaniemi, and Kokkola, in northern Finland. Rovaniemi, near the arctic circle, boasts a Santa Claus park and village which Krahn is proud of. She believes this a fitting place for Santa considering the town's proximity to the North Pole.

Krahn remained in Ballard until 2006 and now lives in senior housing further north.