As of: March 26, 2024, 7:09 a.m
By: Andreas Höger
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Long live the centenarian: Maria Haas celebrated her first triple-digit birthday on Palm Sunday with her sons Josef (r.) and Günter – and a large crowd of well-wishers.
© THOMAS PLETTENBERG
An exclusive club can look forward to a new addition: Maria Haas celebrated her 100th birthday on Palm Sunday.
Only two women from Holzkirchen are older; there are currently no men in the age group over 100.
The centenarian is approaching the new century with a firm resolution: “I want to stay for another ten years.”
Holzkirchen
– Anyone who saw her among her birthday guests in the Gasthaus Zum Oberbräu could only be amazed.
100 years?
“She looks just 80,” says son Josef Paulus (63).
They enjoyed the celebration to the fullest; 85 well-wishers came together.
She had a little chat with everyone.
The two sons, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter, many nieces and nephews with families - the family is extensive.
Most live in the district, many in Irschenberg - where Maria Haas was born on a small deserted farm in 1924, the fifth eldest of twelve siblings.
“She grew up on a farm,” says son Josef.
In Frauenried we went to elementary school, then at the end of the 1930s to the “rural vocational school” that existed in Neukirchen at the time.
During the war, in 1943, the 19-year-old took a position as a housemaid and maid for the Haas couple from Holzkirchen on Frühlingsstrasse.
The small community grew together and the childless couple left the house to young Maria.
The centenarian still lives on the property on the corner of Rosenheimer Strasse today.
“And largely independently,” emphasizes son Josef.
A walker and crutches keep her mobile; short journeys are no problem.
She is supported by Josef and his girlfriend, who live in the house;
The former wife of the second son Günter, who also lives on Frühlingstrasse, also helps.
In 1959, Maria Haas found work in the hotel kitchen of the “Guggemos” in Tegernsee.
She became pregnant and Josef was born in 1960.
But that's why she didn't want to get married; she never lived with the child's father - a brave decision at that time.
“She always went through life confidently and never let herself be driven crazy,” says Josef Paulus.
His half-brother Günter was born in 1970, but his mother later separated from his father.
“My mother always had to work hard,” says her son.
For over 20 years, she disciplinedly got up very early and delivered the local newspapers.
“That worked.
Reading the newspaper was her favorite hobby,” says Paulus with a laugh.
Maybe a secret of her long life?
“It certainly wasn’t sport,” he clarifies, “that was never her thing.”
More like the combination of garden and cards: planting and harvesting, enjoying beautiful flowers - that's where she found and still finds joy in life.
“And of course the wading,” reveals the son.
Those were legendary rounds when she regularly had the three critical dances with her now deceased siblings.
A hundred is not enough.
Maria Haas announced that she would stick with it for at least ten years.
This could succeed, believes Joseph Paulus.
“She always lived healthily, never smoked and drank little alcohol.” Mayor Christoph Schmid, who had already congratulated her in the morning, wanted to know exactly and asked the secret of how to crack the hundred.
In response, he was given a nutritional tip: “Lots of fish and salad, that helps.”
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