PINEHURST, N.C. — Vivian Cunningham is one of the dearest old ladies you’ll ever meet. She’s a female World War II veteran who turned 100 years old just a few weeks ago. 

For the big day, her friends and family wanted to throw her the best party yet. She got hundreds of birthday cards, along with cake and presents.

The party gave Cunningham a chance to spend time with the people she cares about.

“I think she enjoys life. I really do,” said Bill Cunningham, Vivian Cunningham’s son. “She’s pretty with-it for a hundred.”

At her age, she may have to ask you your name twice or forget how old she is occasionally, but she remembers a lot about when she was younger.

“My family didn’t want me to do a lot of things, but I had a mind of my own,” Vivian Cunningham said.

One of her biggest accomplishments was joining the Navy Reserves during World War II.

A young Vivian Cunningham when she was in the Navy.

“I always said I joined the service to see the world, and all I saw was Madison, Wisconsin,” Vivian Cunningham said.

As a woman, she spent a lot of her time in an office while the men were overseas, but it helped pave the way for future generations of women in the military.

“It was just a matter of facing the facts and there’s a job to do,” Vivian Cunningham said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman. You just did it.”

She’s often said joining the military was one of the best decisions she’s ever made. After two years in the Navy, Vivian went to college, got married and had four boys.

“She’s a bit of an understated woman, but she is determined,” Bill Cunningham said. “If she tells me she wants to do something, she will find a way to do it.”

It’s that way of thinking that keeps Vivian active, letting her spend her days hanging out by the pool or playing golf. But most of all, it lets her spend time being independent and enjoying her friends and family.

“I know she touches a lot of lives,” Bill Cunningham said. “She always has touched all of our lives.”

Vivian Cunningham was part of the WAVES program, or Navy Women’s Reserve. She was a first class petty officer and did clerical and administrative work until the women were discharged at the end of World War II.