Marking her 101st birthday on March 12, Janet Harple said she comes by her long life genetically.

"My mother lived to be 101 and a half," Janet stated with a smile.

To celebrate her milestone, Janet enjoyed cake with friends at Paramount Senior Living in Maytown, where she has lived for the past three years.

"I like it here," she said. "You meet nice people, and it's a place where I don't have to cook. I don't have to clean."

Born Janet Derr in Hollidaysburg, Janet was the youngest of five children.

"I had three brothers and a sister," she said. "I'm the only one still here."

Her father was a construction worker, and he brought the family with him as he traveled around to jobs.

"One year, we attended four different schools and my mother said, 'Now, that's the end of that,'" Janet recalled with a laugh. "She said, 'We're not traveling with your father anymore.'"

The family settled in the Elizabethtown area, and when she was a teenager, Janet got a job at the Marietta Depot, where she helped load and unload boxcars.

"I drove a forklift," she said. "I drove three different sizes, including a high lift that went way up high."

She enjoyed that job, which she did for about seven years before she quit to stay home with her son, Dennis.

After she divorced her first husband, Clyde Kaylor, and she married Robert "Bob" Harple in 1963, a friend she'd known for a long time.

He brought four children to the marriage, and the couple had a daughter, Melissa, together.

In addition to staying busy raising the kids, Janet worked as a waitress at various locations, including the Hillcrest Supper Club in Elizabethtown and the Watering Trough in Mount Joy.

She also took an active role in the Women of the Moose, Elizabethtown Chapter 701.

"I am an 82-year member of the Women of the Moose," she said proudly.

Over the years, she served as chair of most of the Women of the Moose committees, held additional leadership positions within her chapter - including serving as Junior Regent and Senior Regent - and earned the College of Regents, the highest honor for a member in her respective chapter.

From 1969 to 1970, she was appointed by the International Women of the Moose to serve as Deputy Grand Regent of Eastern Pennsylvania. From 1976 to 1978, she was appointed to serve on the International Grand Council.

In 1988, Janet became the International Grand Regent, which is the highest appointment granted to the International Women of the Moose. She considers this to be her greatest life achievement.

Today, she doesn't regularly attend meetings or activities with the club, but she's still a proud member of the group.

Throughout her life, Janet has shown that when she sets her mind to something, she accomplishes her goal.

When her heart doctor told her to quit smoking after she had a pacemaker installed, she immediately acted.

"I took my cigarettes out of my pocketbook, and I put them in my freezer for a year so I wouldn't touch them," she recalled. "After a year, I decided I could throw them out."

She also drove until she was 93 years old.

"Then I said to myself one day, 'Janet, you can't see very well. You take this car home, put it in the carport and don't you dare drive it again,'" she recalled. "And I didn't."

Janet enjoyed a long marriage to Bob, who passed away several years ago, and she credits a ritual she shared with him as the secret to her long life.

"I used to drink a Manhattan every night," she said. "After my husband retired, I said, 'We need to have a happy hour.' He liked beer, so he would drink a beer, and I'd have a Manhattan."

Although she uses a wheelchair to get around these days, Janet is in good health.

Around Paramount, she's known for her feistiness and her mental acuity.

"I like eating and talking with my friends here," she said. "I also like to play bingo. I can't play card games, because I can't see the cards very well, but I like bingo."

For the birthday celebration, everyone in the full dining room serenaded Janet with "Happy Birthday" before they all shared cake.

Janet smiled and posed for photos, thanking everyone for the party.

"It's been a wonderful day," she said.