Local centanarian Lorene Kruse turns 103

At 103 years old, Lorene Kruse says she has the secret to living a long and healthy life.

“My biggest secret I have is loving the Lord. Every night and every day,” Lorene said. “I get up every morning and I thank the Lord and ask him to give me strength, courage and faith for the day. That’s what I live by. And I have to have that because I know that he supplies my health, my air I breathe, this little apartment. Everything I have belongs to him.”

Lorene was born January 12, 1920, the middle child of three children. At the age of nine, her mother passed and her father was in a hospital with Huntingston’s disease, so the siblings were split up and sent to live with relatives. She was sent to live with her aunt and stayed through school.