Eileen Dupuis often doesn’t hear everything said.

That’s OK. More than likely she’s heard it all before.

It would be fair to say she has heard it all before. Walking, working and listening for 105 years on planet Earth would make it somewhat difficult to not have experienced great volumes of just about everything.

As a longtime resident of Kankakee County and, in particular, Bourbonnais, this mother of seven will celebrate birthday No. 105 on Saturday (Oct. 18) with family and friends at Westwood Oaks Independent Living – A Riverside Senior Life Community, in west Kankakee.

She moved into Westwood when she turned 95, as “living alone just got to be too much.” That also was the year she stopped driving.

“I never thought I would live to 100,” she said in the living room of her one-bedroom apartment. When asked about reaching age 105, she cracked: “I never gave it a thought.”

She was the eldest of three children born in 1920 to James and Rosetta McLaren, then of Chicago, and the family relocated to Bradley when she was just 9 years old in 1929.

Her father had gained employment at the then-new Kroehler Manufacturing Co. site in Bradley.

She attended school in Bradley for a year before the family relocated to Bourbonnais.

Eileen met her future husband, Leroy, of rural St. George, at a Buckingham dance hall, and at age 21, she was married in 1942 at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Kankakee.

Leroy passed away at the age of 89 in February 2011.

Eileen noted that she worked at the former Bear Brand Hosery factory in Kankakee for two years before marriage, and then she landed at the Joliet Arsenal before taking a position at the Aldens department store in downtown Kankakee.

She worked as a sales clerk at Aldens until it closed in 1985. She then worked at St. Mary Hospital’s gift shop.

Two of Eileen’s children have passed away. One of her late children, James, eventually became chief of the Kankakee Fire Department.

“My age just kind of crept up on me,” she said. She spends time reading – mostly mysteries – and she still cooks “real easy things,” she acknowledged. “I really don’t like to cook.”

A traveler, she fondly recalled adventures to Australia, London, Ireland and Alaska.

So, what is her secret to such a long life?

“Clean, boring living,” she joked.

Her daughter, Georgia, also noted that her mother didn’t exercise nor did she eat fish.

Eileen said she is happiest when she is surrounded by her children, 13 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren.

A 105th birthday party is being held from 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Westwood community room.

“I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.”

Asked if she will make a speech at the party, she said she hoped not.

“I don’t have any words of wisdom,” she said.

Georgia interjected: “You always told us anything can be replaced. And don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Eileen nodded in agreement.

She said she will just keep living “day to day. I don’t think of dying.”