It takes a lot to flummox Edmund Fry, erstwhile proprietor of the Rose Tree Cottage teahouse in Pasadena.
Katherine Baumchen did it on Feb. 8.
The Los Angeles resident arrived at the teahouse door with four members of her family. But it was Baumchen who held sway in a pink-print blouse, black cardigan and navy skirt. After all, she was the one celebrating her 110th birthday.
“Can you imagine having a 110-year-old sitting in your room?” Fry asked. “She walked right up the steps, no walker. We have rather lavish offerings for tea, including raspberry surprise for dessert and she gobbled every single thing,” from the savories and shortbreads to a quaff of the elderflower cordial Edmund imports from the Duke of Rutland’s English estate.
And of course, she had a cup of tea, with milk and sugar, thank you very much.
A visit to Rose Tree was her birthday wish, her great-niece Anne Bonner said.
Baumchen was born on Feb. 10, 1915 in western Canada, part of the Commonwealth upon which tea is a cultural tradition. She was one of eight children who grew up in a wheat farm in the province of Saskatchewan.
“It was regular living,” she told Rev. Tom Welbers in a video interview in 2019. “We had own own pony, a buggy, we had pigs, cows, calves, chickens and geese. We had no luck with turkeys. We had lots of vegetables in the summertime.”
Ice cream was a treat enjoyed only in the winter, when ice from lakes and rivers helped freeze the confections.
A year after the Depression hit in 1929, Baumchen said her family moved to Toronto. She remembers that time for the ways her family found joy, such as weekly dances at homes where her brother played the accordion.
In 1940, at 25, Baumchen got an office job, training first on the comptometer, a key-driven mechanical calculator. That job led to a position with Standard Oil Company. Her Los Angeles story began with her older sister Marie.
“We went to Los Angeles on vacation first, in 1955,” Baumchen said. “We drove down and exited Normandie (the year the 110 Freeway opened). We liked it so we said let’s stay for a year. We liked the weather, the beautiful trees, it was safe.”
The sisters settled in for good by 1964. Baumchen found an office job with Standard Oil, and also began volunteering weekly at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles. She would do that for 25 years.
Baumchen retired in 1980, when she was 65, launching adventures in travel, dancing and card games. Whist and euchre are favorites. She and Marie later moved to Nazareth House in Los Angeles, run by the Sisters of Nazareth.
It was from here that Baumchen celebrated her 105th birthday, with her first trip to Rose Tree Cottage. So enamored was she that she requested the same treat for her 110th.
The honor is certainly a highlight of the entire 50 years of Rose Tree Cottage, Edmund Fry said.
Mary Fry who said Baumchen did share another secret to her longevity.
“She said she had two desserts everyday, and I told her I’ll work on it,” she said.
Another nugget of wisdom is “just to do things as they come along.”
It is a philosophy that the Frys are trying to live out after the Eaton Fire. The windstorm that sparked the massive wildfire damaged much of the tea house’s outdoor areas, whisking away umbrellas and canvas covers. It also knocked Edmund Fry over, injuring his right arm, as he and Mary tried to rescue a heavily-decorated Christmas tree on the porch.
“When you’re 85 years old, you just switch hands and keep on going,” Fry said.
That attitude comes from wanting to do their best by BloomWherePlanted.org, the children’s charity and school they started in Kenya. Teahouse profits all go to the education of African children, the first class of whom are now earning their master’s degrees. Last year, 93 children graduated from its primary school.
The privations a continent away remind the Frys that “with every storm, with every fire, with every gale, there is a silver lining.”
“This is a silver-lining story,” Edmund said. “Oh, the joy they gave Mary and I. They were such a delight and a surprise.”
As for preparing for Baumchen’s 115th birthday tea party, the Frys said they are at the ready, wildfire or no.
“We shall carry on. We will be here and we will get through this together.”