ST. BENEDICT — Perhaps it’s Alda Collins’ quick wit that has kept her going 110 years.

“I’m just not ready to go yet,” she said with a hearty laugh, joking she’s been around so long that she once carried a bucket of tar onto Noah’s storied ark.

Born in 1902, Collins might not date back to biblical times but is believed to be Pennsylvania’s second-oldest person. She also is among only 60 people in the nation counted as “supercentenarians.”

Collins turned 110 last week.

Her story began July 26, 1902, before television, the radio and the nation’s world wars.

That year, 112 miners lost their lives in Johnstown’s Rolling Mill Mine disaster.

The Wright Brothers had not yet made their famed flight.

Theodore Roosevelt was president.  He had become the first of 19 who would take up residence in the White House during Collins’ lifetime.

A lifelong Republican, she has voted in every election since women won the right to vote, her son, James, said.

A one-time rural Somerset school teacher, she gave up the career to raise her two sons while her husband, William, ran his Somerset barber shop.

“Things were different back then,” she said, recalling her one-room schoolhouse.

A potbellied stove provided heat during frigid winter months. It also separated the boys and girls in the room, she said, noting they often were taught separately.

As a homemaker, Collins taught her sons, James and William, to “live right,” she said.

Alcohol and tobacco were off-limits, she added, noting the lifestyle choice could be a reason she’s still here today.

Her husband, William, was a World War I vet who served as a sharpshooter before returning home.

“He was in the cavalry,” she said, interrupting her son James, 73, to tell him he mispronounced the word.

“Always a teacher. She’s still correcting me,” he said during an interview at St. Benedict Manor near Carrolltown.

Collins has called the manor home since 2007.

She lived alone until she was 105, her son James said.

She still feeds herself and walks with a metal walker.

Collins enjoys reading, particularly supermarket tabloids, although she admits her poor vision makes the task difficult.

Current events and politics are a passion, her son said.

She was active in GOP politics. And Collins talks about President Barack Obama and his presidential contender, Mitt Romney, as easily as generations-old events such as the Kennedy assassination and Watergate.

She said she met then-Vice President Richard Nixon during a Somerset visit in 1954.

“I gave him a cup of coffee,” she said, recalling the future president thanked her politely.

She has had a knack for predicting presidential winners over the years, her son said.

She only got it wrong once, he maintains.

“Jimmy Carter surprised her,” he said, prompting his mother to chuckle.

As for Obama-Romney this fall:  

“I like the Mormon fella ... but he’s not gonna win it,” she said. “Obama’s in. He’s the incumbent.”

Don’t expect Collins to offer any secrets to living to 110.

She takes a daily vitamin and guesses “good genes” helped. A sister is still alive at 95 years old and their mother lived into her 90s, she added.

“But I just don’t think it’s my time to go,” she said.

James said he likely will be talking with the Guinness records folks and a list of genealogical groups in the coming days.

“When you turn 110, all of a sudden everyone starts paying attention,” he said. “That’s when they get excited.”

Not Collins.

She gave several other interviews this week and doesn’t really see what the fuss is about, her son said.

“I’m not famous at all,” she said.

But that’s not to say she isn’t enjoying the fact that she is celebrating another year.

Collins said she would like to write a family history book, with her son’s help, and feels good health-wise.

“I think I can do a few more years,” she said matter-of-factly.

“And I hope I do. Because it means I’d still be here.”

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