Community: Longtime Glendale altruist approaches 106

Gertrude Ness will celebrate her 106th birthday on April 22. She was born in 1906, and has lived in Glendale and Burbank since the early 1940s.

She continues membership in four organizations — the Patrons Club, Sons of Norway, California Retired Teachers Assn. and Glendale Beautiful.

Born in Milroy, Minn., Ness grew up on a farm and attended Minnesota State Teachers College for two years. She taught third grade, after-school band, orchestras and took a youth rhythm band to a prize-winning youth drum and bugle corps that performed throughout Minnesota from 1928 to 1941.

She and her husband, Peder, moved to Glendale in 1941. From 1943 to 1944, she worked at the Lockheed Vega plant in Burbank on B-17 bombers riveting the bombay doors, she said.

Ness started her 30-year career in child care in 1944 with the Glendale Unified School District. In the late 1960s, she served as president of the California Child Care Supervisors Assn. She retired from the school district in 1973.

She is most proud of being the supervisor of the Glendale district's nursery school program for children whose mothers had to go to work while they're fathers served during World War II, she said.

Throughout her time in Glendale she has served on the Glendale Coordinating Council, Glendale YWCA Board of Directors, the Women's Committee of the Glendale Symphony Orchestra Assn., Altrusa Club of Glendale and the Women's Civic League, as well as playing percussion and serving as librarian of the Valley Symphony Orchestra.

Burton and Ahluwalia exchange vows

Alasdair and Carol Ann Burton of Glendale have announced the wedding of their daughter, Caitriana Elizabeth Mary Burton, to Pranay Ahluwalia, son of Ashok and Madhu Ahluwalia of Delhi, India.

Caitriana is a 2000 graduate of Marlborough School and a 2004 graduate of Columbia University in New York City. She received her master's from the University of Bristol, England. She works for the British government in their tax and excise ministry as a senior statistician in London.

Pranay received his bachelor's degree in India, then went to the University of Glasgow for his master's in finance. He is employed as a finance analyst for the Royal Bank of Scotland in London.

Caitriana and Pranay married on Dec. 18, at Taplow Court in the suburbs of London. A West Coast reception was held at the home of the bride on March 17. The couple now live in London.

Soroptimists give accolades