LOMA LINDA

Frieda Juden, who turns 110 on Sunday, remembers when the San Francisco earthquake hit in 1906, causing chimneys to collapse and forcing families to cook on wood stoves outside.

She recalls being amazed when the Titanic sank in 1912.

She also remembers when the construction of a new highway, called Interstate 10, gave her family the chance to buy a Redlands house stuck in the path of the freeway and move it to their property in Muscoy.

"It doesn't feel any different than being 80," Juden said about her birthday. "We just live day after day, and pretty soon, you turn out to be 110. I thought my father was old; he was 84 when he died."

Juden joked that her friends and caregivers are being "too elaborate" with the plans for her birthday. They threw her a sing-along party Friday afternoon at Linda Valley Care Center, where she lives, in Loma Linda. A celebration, complete with cake and potluck dishes, is planned for noon today at her church, Arden Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Highland.

Juden had her hair done and donned a red dress for Friday's festivities. At the urging of her friend, 84-year-old Ruth Love, Juden put in her dentures, even though she said they make her mouth a little sore.

Juden is losing her eyesight. She struggled with pneumonia a few years ago, Love said, but "she's been doing very well lately."

Love said she and her husband, Lucian, who just turned 80, first met Juden at church in 1956. "We've adopted her as our mom, and she adopted us as her kids."

Juden was born in Germany in 1890 while her American parents were visiting relatives. She grew up on a sheep ranch near San Francisco, where Juden said she and her sisters would spend all day outside, chasing the chickens and playing veterinarian.

She graduated high school, moved to Los Angeles, became a bookkeeper and met Francis Juden, whom she married in June 1916. She had a son, Francis Jr., and the family moved to the San Bernardino area in the 1940s. Her husband died in 1988. Her son and his wife live in Baldwin Park. A granddaughter lives in Tennessee.

Juden was always an avid gardener, friends and family said. She surprised her son and daughter-in-law years ago when they came to her house for a visit and found Juden, in her 80s, standing 15 feet up a ladder, sawing off a tree limb.

She also took in strays, including a black cat named Kitty and a dog named Taffy, whose pictures she keeps in her room at the nursing home.

Juden said the secret to her longevity is "just right living, living according to what the Bible says." Originally a Lutheran, Juden converted to Adventism in 1930 and has been a vegetarian ever since.

She said she never drank alcohol and smoked only one cigarette in her life, trying to persuade her husband to quit smoking.

"I told him I was going to start if he didn't quit," Juden recalled.

Juden's mother died when Juden was in her early teens. Juden was living with her aunt and uncle in San Francisco when the 1906 earthquake hit.

"I didn't feel it because I was in bed with my sister. We went downstairs. My uncle had a rolling fire going. He said, `What are you doing down here in your nightgown?' " Juden remembered. Scared and wanting to be next to the fire with the rest of the family, she said, "I never got dressed quicker in my life."

She also recalls the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the death of one of its many passengers, the financier John Jacob Astor. She remembers thinking, "Even all his riches couldn't save him."

Sharyn Obsatz can be reached at sobsatz@pe.com or (909) 792-6547.

Published 4/8/2000