Alice Darrow, Lake County’s last living link to Pearl Harbor, celebrated her 100th birthday

Alice Darrow didn’t bring the bullet to her birthday party.

That was OK. Presumably, most or all of the widely cast kin and friends of Darrow who converged Saturday on Clearlake previously had seen the Japanese-made machine gun slug, an artifact central to one of the greatest love stories spawned by the 1941 sneak attack on Hawaii that drew the U.S. into World War II. And Saturday’s celebration was all about another momentous event, one that occurred 22 years earlier.

Darrow was born in the farm town of Vina, in Tehama County, on March 16, 1919.

One hundred years later, the lithe and endearing former Navy nurse has become Lake County’s last living link to the world-altering calamity at Pearl Harbor. And she has borne a profound effect on many lives.

“One of the best days of my life was meeting Alice,” party guest Bob Perez said upon his turn to stand in the American Legion hall, introduce himself and tell how far he’d traveled.

Though there were relatives and friends of Darrow who’d come from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Hawaii, Arizona and other distant points, Perez and his wife, Carmela, are her neighbors and drove just the few miles from the Riviera section of Kelseyville.

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