> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Woman sinks teeth into another century - URL: https://www.smdp.com/woman-sinks-teeth-into-another-century/ - Published: 2006-03-21T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T17:22:33.000Z - Author: Kevin Herrera - Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import *BIRTHDAY GIRL, from page 1 Centenarian gets her kicks* SECOND STREET —She turned 100 years old last Thursday, and while her friends felt the need to remind Frances Keto how lucky she was to still have her health, Keto said she’s grateful just to have all her own teeth. “See, they’re all mine,” she said with pride, opening her mouth wide to show off her not-so pearly whites to those seated beside her in the lobby of the Pacific Gardens retirement home where Keto spends her days chatting with friends, playing cards and exercising. “When you get to be my age, they usually don’t last that long.” Keto said she owes it all to her mother, who lost her teeth at an early age. “She kept telling me, ‘You don’t want yours to look like this do you,’ and she’d pull out her teeth and smile at me,” Keto said. “It kind of scared me straight.” While there are those who view hitting the century mark as some sort of milestone, Keto doesn’t. “It’s just another day,” she said. “I don’t want people to make a big fuss, but I’m sure they will.” Keto grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, known as Homestead, where she lived with her mother and father, a steel worker, and her four brothers and sisters. “I had a good childhood,” she recalled. “We lived in a nice town for families. My father always worked, even during the Great Depression. I had a hard time believing there was one because my father always had a job. Nothing changed in our house during that time, which made me wonder why so many men couldn’t find work. I guess it wasn’t that easy.” After graduating high school, and not having given much thought to a career, Keto said she was lucky enough to find her husband, Harry, a real estate agent. The two met at a nightclub when Harry asked her to dance. “You never refused an offer to dance back in those days,” she said. “(My husband) was very nice, a good dancer for one thing, and always had something interesting to say.” The two moved to Los Angeles shortly after getting married, and settled on the Westside, spending much of their free time in Santa Monica going to the beach — something which they had never seen in Pittsburgh — or to the local dance halls where they would see Lawrence Welk perform regularly. Times were tough during World War II, Keto said, as her husband was drafted into the army and went to fight in Europe. Keto remembers being worried constantly about her husband, not knowing if he would live or die. “It was horrible,” she said. “There were people you knew, who lived right next door, who were dying or coming back with injury. It was awful.” Looking back, Keto said she sees many similarities between World War II and the war in Iraq, particularly the large number of young men coming home with war wounds. “Not any war is good,” she said. “I just can’t believe that we’re fighting still. You would think they could find some other way. But that’s life.” After the war, Keto got a job as a telephone switchboard operator, and eventually answered phones for comedienne Lucille Ball when “I Love Lucy” was in its prime. She looks back on those days fondly, and is never at a loss for words when it comes to describing her former boss, whom she said was the funniest woman to ever grace television. “She was so nice,” Keto said of Ball. “During rehearsals she would do something so funny and didn’t even know it, and it would often be funnier than what was on the script. We’d all be there in the morning watching her read through her lines and she would say something and we would all start laughing. She’d ask us, ‘What did I say?’ We’d tell her and she would start cracking up too. She didn’t have the least idea how funny she was. And that Desi (Arnaz, Ball’s husband and co-star), he was a very nice, handsome man. We always had good conversations.” When Keto isn’t busy with her exercises or chatting with friends, she likes to watch musicals on television and play Bingo. Of course, she never misses an episode of “I Love Lucy.” Keto, who can still kick her legs high into the air like a showgirl, said she has no idea why she has lived to be 100. “I’m just lucky, I guess,” she said. “I eat the same food everyone else eats. I play cards, exercise like they do. The only thing I can say is that if you find something you like, don’t overdue it, because it will catch up to you in the end. And always keep laughing and keep smiling.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/032106-03_03.jpg) Frances Keto leans in to blow out her birthday candles while her great, great neice, Devon Jackson, 7, and nephew, Connor Jackson, 4, look on. (Photo: Fabian Lewkowicz/Daily Press) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 21, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032106.pdf?ref=smdp.com)