Today, Monday, Jan. 14, the lifelong Hall resident celebrates her 106th birthday, and although she doesn't see as well as she'd like, Jensen has few complaints.
She's got a touch of arthritis and needs a bit of aspirin to relieve the pain, but other than that, the cattle rancher takes no medication.
Jensen said she gets around pretty good but misses riding horses, which she did all her life until she was 101, when her family encouraged her to stop, telling her it probably wasn't a good idea.
Her grandchildren call her an inspiration, and her great grandchildren think she is nothing short of a superstar.
“She is one of the most amazing people I know,” said 19-year-old Kelly Wilson, one of Jensen's great grandsons.
“She was driving her four-wheeler to do ranch chores until she was 103 - and at that age she was still driving her pickup and throwing hay out to feed the cows,” said another of Jensen's great grandsons, 20-year-old Blake Hauptman. “Now that is amazing.”
Mentally sharp and steady on her feet, Jensen greeted what seemed like nearly all of Granite County as the ranching community gathered at the Drummond Masonic Lodge on Sunday to honor their matriarch.
Jensen greeted each and every person with a handshake and a hug. After awhile, and with a long line of well-wishers stacking up, Jensen's grandchildren arrived with her favorite chair borrowed from the house she's lived in nearly half of her life and made her sit down.
Wearing an elegant pantsuit adorned with a flower corsage, Jensen looked the part of a queen greeting admirers from a plush throne.
“I've had a good life,” Jensen said, beaming proudly.
Born in 1902, Mary was the sixth child born to Alex and Catherine Wight, who homesteaded in Hall in the late 1800s, said Ruth Linfield, Jensen's granddaughter.
By the time Mary was born, the Wights owned three major ranches in the area, which remain in the family today and are owned and operated by Jensen, a grandson, and a great-nephew. One of Jensen's her great-nieces lives in the original Wight family house.
She nearly died of scarlet fever when she was a teenager attending high school in Philipsburg. So many people were sickened by the disease, and so many people died that when she was ill, Jensen said, she was forced to stay in a Philipsburg boarding house until she either died or was consumed by the disease.
Somehow, she survived when so many others didn't. It was the only time was ever seriously ill.
What Jensen loved most growing up in and around Hall was that she could ride her horses everywhere. Of course, they had to - there were no cars in the area for a long while, not until her father came home with Hall's first Model T.
To get to dancing class in Philipsburg, the girls of Hall and Drummond would hop on a little train that serviced the communities.
As Jensen grew, so did the valley. She watched workers arrive with draft-horse teams and slowly put in the roadways to accommodate car traffic. And she watched the world change from her ranch in Hall, and from the numerous trips she took overseas with her fellow Masons and members of the Order of the Eastern Star.
Before Mary married Emery Jensen, at the age of 26, she taught children in various one-room schoolhouses and rural schools between Nimrod and Hall.
Being active and staying active is, perhaps, one of the reasons that explain Jensen's long and full life, said Dave Hauptman, Jensen's grandson.
“I think she still outdoes us all in the memory department,” Hauptman said. “She and Emery worked hard all their life, and being involved with agriculture, she lived a clean, simple life.”
“She has an amazing attitude - it's one that is always looking forward,” he said. “She still talks about managing the ranch and the upcoming seasons. And she is always interested in everything going on around her.”
These days, Jensen's mind is focused on the U.S. presidential race.
She can't see too well, but her hearing is as sharp as ever.
“There's not a candidate I like,” she said. “And I really don't like Hillary (Clinton). She should stay home and keep to the kitchen.”
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