June Relat turned 107 years old on Wednesday, and her neighbors in Sacramento's Arden Park neighborhood had a surprise waiting for her outside her front door. A crowd gathered on the street, sang to her, and brought out a birthday cake, catching Relat completely off guard on a day she said she doesn't spend much time thinking about anyway.
A Birthday Surprise Nobody Saw Coming
The celebration came together entirely without the knowledge of Relat's own family. According to KCRA, Relat's daughter, Cathy Crothers, said the street put it all together themselves, adding, “I had no idea.” Relat, for her part, said she was overwhelmed by the gesture from the people who live around her.
The outdoor gathering was simple but heartfelt: neighbors gathered outside her home, sang, and shared a cake, according to the same report. For Relat, the moment wasn't just a nice afternoon — it was a reminder of a different era. “In my day, everybody pitched in and helped everybody,” she said, per KCRA's account of the celebration.
Documents Trace a Wartime Career
While the party unfolded outside, Crothers was also sharing a piece of her mother's history indoors. She provided photographs and original documents detailing Relat's work during World War II, the station reports. Among them was a Western Union telegram dated December 1941 that offered Relat an appointment as a stenographer, with an annual salary of $1,440.
Crothers told the outlet that her mother went on to work at the Pentagon before taking an overseas assignment in Brazil, providing civilian service connected to the U.S. War Department during the war. A separate document dated 1945 recognized Relat's civilian service overseas, according to the report — paperwork that had apparently sat largely unremarked upon for decades before resurfacing alongside her birthday celebration.
Part of a Growing Population
Relat's milestone arrives as the number of Americans reaching the triple digits keeps climbing. The U.S. population of people ages 100 and older is projected to more than quadruple over the next three decades, from an estimated 101,000 in 2024 to about 422,000 by 2054, according to Pew Research Center. Centenarians currently make up just 0.03 percent of the overall U.S. population, a share Pew projects will rise to 0.1 percent by 2054, and women made up 78 percent of that group in 2024 compared with 22 percent who were men.
Despite reaching an age that remains rare even as the centenarian population grows, Relat didn't dwell on the number. She said she doesn't really think much about having reached 107, according to KCRA's report — focusing instead, it seems, on the neighbors who showed up to celebrate with her.
