Throughout her near-century of life, Betty Atkins, a former small business owner and active senior, has gotten to know a lot of people in the Wheaton and Glen Ellyn area.

One hundred forty of them are planning to attend her 100th birthday party Saturday in Cantigny Park. Not bad for a woman who said she hadn’t even heard of Wheaton until her brother-in-law, former Wheaton Central Athletic Director and Football Coach Bob Horsley, took a job there.

“I’ve made some wonderful friends here. I’m surprised how many, really,” she said. “They drop in and open the door and just say ‘I’m here!’ Even when I’m not always able to visit.”

Atkins was born Elizabeth Jane Poorman – “but nobody calls me Elizabeth” – in Mattoon, Ill. in 1913. She lived with her parents, Alvin, a railroad engineer, and Margaret, and grew up with her sister, Mary, in a house her father built. She said she still has a replica of the house in her condo in Fontana, Wis.

“We were treated like two little princesses,” she said. “I had a beautiful childhood.”

She remembered happy drives through the country on Sunday afternoons, during which the family bought butter, popped corn and ate apples at a nearby farm.

Atkins later had a child, Lance, with her first husband, Clyde Isham, who died at 42 from lung cancer. She later married Dale Atkins, who had a son from a previous marriage, Tom. Between the two, she has two grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

She and Dale opened a bridal registry and gift store called Creative Gift Studio in 1962 on South Main Street in Glen Ellyn. They operated the shop for 21 years before deciding to retire.

“My husband would have gone on forever, but I was getting tired,” she said, with a laugh.

Atkins credited the “very dedicated girls who worked for us” with the store’s success.

She was responsible for buying all of the goods sold in the store, including china and sterling silver. She said she was good at the work because “I love beautiful things. Buying things was difficult though, because everything looked beautiful!”

After their retirement, she and her husband traveled the world. They went on seven cruises together and visited Hawaii, the Mediterranean, Africa, Alaska and more.

Mary Lubko, former senior citizen director for the Wheaton Park District and friend to Atkins, said they became close on a trip to Africa.

“Our big trip was Kenya for a safari in ’85. It seemed after that we just seemed to click, and I kept visiting her.”

Lubko, 85, said she is impressed by the level of energy her longtime friend has maintained as she nears 100.

“She’s truly a remarkable woman,” said Atkins’ neighbor and friend Les Wiberg. “Until she had her stroke a year ago, she was as active physically as she is mentally now. Delightful person, wonderful conversationally.”

When asked if he had any good stories about his longtime neighbor, Les laughed.

“She’d kill me if I told you some of them,” he said. “I’d like to live a little longer – at least until the party.”