QUENTIN ROUX / Staff

Ruth Niessen glances over at one of her party guests during her 100th birthday bash at Arturo's Ristorante Italiano.

QUENTIN ROUX / Staff

It's all smiles for the camera as the party of guests toasts the grand lady, rear center.

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At 100, Ruth Niessen may be a tad dimmer of hearing and vision these days, but there was no denying the sparkle in her bright blue eyes as she leaned over and said: “Now, you’re not going to write a whole lot of things about me, are you?”

The occasion was a big birthday bash for the sprightly centenarian at Arturo’s Ristorante Italiano on Marco Island.

In attendance in equal numbers were members of the beauty salon she frequents weekly, as well as staffers from the home health care agency which helps with some of her domestic needs.

Very few needs, actually. The lady is virtually independent.

“It’s more companionship than anything else,” said Janel Hanna, who is a nurse and administrator of Always There Home Health Care. “She likes someone to play cards with, and someone to go out to dinner with.”

Niessen, a widow and mom of one, who’s lived on Marco at Emerald Beach since 1972, clearly enjoyed being the center of attraction on this particular evening, joking and chatting with the table of well-wishers while occasionally sipping delicately on a glass of rosé wine.

“You know,” she said with a hearty chuckle, “if people ask me about living a long life, I always tell them it’s because I did all the wrong things.”

A little more investigative reporting revealed that the only “wrong” thing appears to have been enjoying occasional puffs on a cigarette, a habit she cheerfully admits to having quit some time in her 80s.

“I just got tired of the taste,” she said.

Down the years, she’s also gracefully quit driving and golfing, both when she was in her 80s as well.

“I got that macular degeneration thing,” she said of a voluntary decision to turn in her driver’s license. “I was afraid I might hit someone.”

Not content to become sedentary, however, Niessen still pursues her beachside passion of shelling and “fossiling” whenever she gets the chance.

And, of course, her weekly visits to Coiffures International for hairstyling.

Hanna said Niessen is an inspiration to her staff.

“She’s a matriarch,” Hanna said. “She’s from such a different generation, and has taught us so much about life. She’s amazingly compassionate and sweet.”

Back at the party, Niessen leaned over once again with a look of mock admonishment on her face.

“You can just say my life has been divided into thirds,” she said. “St. Paul, Minnesota, the Philadelphia area and Marco Island. That’s all you need to say.”