Alice Blum has spent 95 of her 100 years in Dewey

Alice Blum has been coming to Dewey Beach since Warren G. Harding was president.

Things, she said, without irony, have changed.

“Everything this way was a swamp,” she said, slowly moving her arm in a westerly direction, from the living room of her house on Dickinson Avenue, the second home from the oceanside dune.

Blum celebrated her 100th birthday March 14 in Dewey, a place she has been visiting since 1921.

“In a way, Dewey is my home,” she said.

Blum started coming to Dewey at age 5 with Sister Carolyn Filler, a Lutheran Deaconess from Baltimore. Blum knew the deaconess because her parents lived in and maintained the church’s motherhouse.

Blum said, at the time, she didn’t know where Dewey Beach was, but she knew there was a beach and the ocean.

“It took a while to get adjusted being at the beach,” said the girl from Charm City. She said can also remember the trek from the city to the beach. “It was a long day,” she recalled.

As long as there have been people in Dewey, there have been bonfires on the beach, she said. Blum didn’t participate in the weekend bonfires, but she knew what was going on. “Everybody knew what was going on,” she said dryly.

Blum is Dewey Beach Commissioner Gary Mauler’s aunt. Mayor Diane Hanson presented Blum with a certificate of recognition during the commissioners’ March 12 meeting.

“This is my aunt’s happy place,” Mauler said. “This is a good place to hang out. She seems to be a lot more relaxed.”