Helen (Rendish) Brida recently celebrated her 101st birthday in Irvine, California, where she has lived since 2007 with her oldest daughter, Ginny, and her husband, Jim Ignacio.

The Thanksgiving weekend birthday was celebrated with a “great-grandchildren’s party in the park” and again with her extended California family on Thanksgiving Day.Helen, formerly of Lansford, Coaldale and Hometown, was married to the late Victor Brida. She has two daughters: Virginia, and her husband, Jim Ignacio, with whom she resides, and Anne Marie, and her husband Richard Kovach of Bethlehem.Helen was born in Nesquehoning on Nov. 27, 1914, daughter of Anna (Barilla) and Michael Rendish, and raised in Lansford. She attended St. Michael’s Catholic School and church. After she and Victor were married, they moved to Hometown, where they were members of St. Jerome’s Church. Her daughters attended St. Jerome’s School and later Marian Catholic High School.In her later years, Helen was a faithful member of New Life Church in Tamaqua.Helen was the third oldest in the Rendish family of 11 children. She has outlived all her siblings and is the first from either side of her family to live to be a centenarian.Her daughters say her life is a testimony to the grace and goodness of God to give her health and length of days, and a life well-lived.They say she has been a blessing to them as well as her sons-in-law; four granddaughters, Carolyn Kovach Neri, Elissa Kovach, Chrissie Frickman and Nancy Hartnett, and their husbands; nine great-grandchildren; nieces; nephews; and her many friends.She celebrated her 100th milestone birthday last year on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27. A large luncheon was held in her honor in Irvine with friends and relatives from Washington, California, Virginia and Pennsylvania in attendance.