After more than a century, Vida Marie Bettencourt-Legge finally gets her picture in the paper

Petaluma’s Vida Marie Bettencourt-Legge celebrated her 105th birthday Friday, Feb. 4 without fanfare or festivities. When asked by friends what she'd like for her birthday, she said, "I've never had my picture in the paper. I guess that's what I'd like."

And so, Vida, here you are. Happy belated birthday.

A life so long and so rich serves more than just a picture, of course.

Her story began before her birth, when the Great San Francisco Earthquake and fire devastated the city on April 18, 1906, and 40,000 homeless survivors ended up living in a tent city in Golden Gate Park. Those survivors included an Irish girl named Eva Mooney. In her first time out on her own without the supervision of her father and four brothers — and "looking for adventure," as Vida now tells it — Eva met a handsome Portuguese trombone player named Joe Bettencourt. They soon married and lived in Sausalito, where Joe's family had dairy ranches.

The adventures were only beginning.

In 1915, Joe and Eva climbed Mt. Tamalpais, two weeks before Eva gave birth to twins Russell and Ruth. On Feb. 4, 1917, the Bettencourts had another daughter, our Vida Marie. Her early life was filled with music, as her "papa" led a popular swing orchestra that spawned the likes of bandleader Paul Whiteman. Of her father, Vida recently said, "I was very proud, because he was like a celebrity, and that was impressive."

As kids, Vida and her twin siblings would hike a mile to Pine Station, catch a train into town, take the ferry to San Francisco, and visit their Portuguese relatives in the Sunset, and their Irish relatives in the Mission. Whenever Papa loaded up the truck to head into town, Vida would "run to join him and jump in the truck and ride to the library in Sausalito."

This led to a lifelong, voracious appetite for reading.

Vida attended Catholic grammar school, and graduated from Mt. Tamalpais High School in 1934. She worked in her cousin's San Francisco salon as a manicurist. At a dance in Fairfax in 1936 — featuring her papa's orchestra, of course — she met Herbert William Legge, the English son of a ship's engineer. Vida was 19 and Herb was 26. As newlyweds, they lived in his mother's five-story home at 33 Miller Ave. in Sausalito. Built in 1888 by Major O.C. Miller, it is one of the oldest houses in town, and serves as an event center today known as "The Pines."

Herb and Vida’s wedding hit a bit of a snag, however, as he was Episcopalian, and Vida was a devout Catholic.

"He was seven years older, and I didn't know how to stand up for myself," she said. So they were married in Episcopal Grace Cathedral on May 30, 1936. In later years, they had a second ceremony in a Catholic church. As for eventually learning standing up to her husband, Vida recalled, "I learned to. The hard way."

Herb and Vida had six children — Janae "Jan" Anne, Ronica "Rocky" Jean, Michael Stephen, Herbert Edwin, Trudy Mary, and Claire Marie. Today Vida has 11 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-grandchildren.

The Legges lived on dairy ranches in Coyote Valley in Marin and Roberts Road in Penngrove, then on what is now Tara Firma Farm out I Street in Petaluma. From there, they moved to a house at 827 B St.

"The only house in Petaluma where a sitting president slept,“ Vida said. ”He was the fat one, Taft."

Eventually, the Legges moved to 6th and I streets, across from what was then Petaluma General Hospital, then on to Fairview Terrace. Finally, as empty-nesters, Herb and Vida moved into a mobile home in Sonoma in the late 1970s, and from there traveled the world, visiting The Azores, Ireland, England, Norway, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The Legges enjoyed cruises as well, and on one they befriended fellow passengers actor Pat O'Brien and his wife, Eloise.

After Herb died in March of 2001, Vida continued to travel, visiting Italy and Mexico, and repeatedly going to what was then known as Yugoslavia, making her Catholic pilgrimage to Medugorje to see Apparition Hill, where it was reported that the Virgin Mary appeared in 1981.

Throughout their married life, Herb and Vida were very active in fighting for the rights of the developmentally disabled, and when the Petaluma School District was short on teachers' aides, Vida took courses at S.S.U. and S.R.J.C., and began a career as a teacher's and special education aide.

After a century of enjoying books and reading, that passion still continues for Vida. As a child, she loved was she calls "stories of families and children." With limited vision today, and in only one eye, Vida now "reads" audio books. She particularly loves biographies, such as that of Michelle Obama, which she recently finished. Not a big fan of poetry, Vida is nonetheless a huge fan of Maya Angelou. She loved her biography and went once to meet her.

Vida Marie Bettencourt-Legge survived two world wars and two global pandemics. Along the way, she once met her singing idol, Tony Bennett — and married the love of her life.

That’s a lot of life, indeed, and to think she lived it in just 105 years.