On Saturday, Selma resident Eleanor Clark celebrated her 107 birthday.

“I’ve just lived a home life,” Clark said. “I’m just an average person, nothing exciting.”

Clark migrated to the United States from Hungary at only two-years-old, accompanied by her mother and sisters. Though she could recall what the experience was like, she remembers that the ship she travelled on caught fire.

Clark and her family arrived safely in the United States and took up residence in New York City. She later moved to the Bronx to attend school.

She recalled how the trolleys were pulled by horses and the excitement of visiting neighborhood shops, before they were overtaken by large corporations.

Clark married her husband, Calvin Clark, in 1931 where they took up residence on States Island. Calvin Clark serves in the Coast Guard during the war, where he conducted sea rescues and travelled to Iceland and other locales.

During that time, Eleanor served as a nurse with the Red Cross.

After the war, the pair moved to Minnesota and then to Chicago before landing in Selma after Calvin Clark’s retirement in 1951.

Her husband passed away in 1981 and Eleanor remains in Selma, where she is active in her church Our Lady Queen of Peace.

Though she finds joy in everyday things, Clark has noticed changes in society that she believes are less than ideal.

“The people were more compassionate in those days,” Clark said. “Nowadays, somebody cloudless run you over with their car and not even stop.”

She also resents what she sees as a sense of entitlement in people of today.

“Help yourself,” Clark said. “Everybody wants to start at the top, nobody wants to start at the beginning.”

Clark received birthday greetings from Selma Mayor Darrio Melton, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and President Donald Trump.

In her long life, Clark has learned that you have to have a sense of humor to survive.

“You have to laugh,” Clark said. “Laughing is good for you, that’s my theory.”