By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Dowagiac Nursing Home will be bustling even more than usual Saturday, Nov. 29, for Mamie Malsch's 100th birthday party from 2 to 4 p.m. in the south dining room.
She knows she's turning 100, but doesn't know anyone else who's lived that long -- "not that I know of."
She was born in Redfield, S.D., but lived between Niles and Buchanan as well as around Dowagiac.
Her extended family is coming from Minnesota and Italy to celebrate the durability of the matriarch of a clan that includes 10 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren and 18 great-great-grandchildren, Joy Murphy, Vern's wife, counted up.
She had three boys. Her eldest son, Harold, who died three years ago, lived in Minnesota much of his life.
Vern Murphy, the Dowagiac florist, came second. His half-brother, Larry Malsch, the "baby" at 60, served eight years on Dowagiac City Council and seven years on the Cass County Board of Commissioners before resigning last week to become Porter Township supervisor.
With his son, Phillip, and family, Gina and their children, Hailey and Hunter, visiting from Italy, there were four generations in the activity room Tuesday afternoon.
Murphy said his mother had two sisters and a brother. Her family came to Michigan because her father grew up in Silver Creek Township and became an engineer on the railroad in South Dakota.
When his parents divorced, Mrs. Malsch moved to Niles. "I stayed in Dowagiac with my grandparents until 1940," Murphy said, "then I moved to Niles and graduated there." His mother worked in drug stores and restaurants.
Malsch was born in Niles and graduated from high school there in 1961. He moved to Dowagiac in 1964. They're not sure precisely when Mrs. Malsch moved back this way to Twin Lakes.