102-Year-Old Woman Still Teaching Babies to Swim After More Than 50 Years: ‘It Makes Me Happy’

Meet the 102-year-old Oregon woman who has been teaching swim classes for over five decades — and doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon!

Peggy Konzack is known throughout Roseburg for teaching several generations of babies how to swim at the YMCA of Douglas County. This was not the route she expected her life to take, however.

The stay-at-home mom of two was originally studying to be a hairstylist when she was approached about the job, Marisa Fink, executive director of the Oregon Alliance of YMCAs, tells PEOPLE.

Decades later, Peggy has never looked back — and she says she plans to keep teaching these classes “for as long as I can.”

“I often said that I will keep teaching and swimming until they can wheel me in a wheelchair and dump me in the water,” she jokes.

Peggy was born in Los Angeles on June 5, 1921, Fink says. She later moved to Butte, Mont., where she met her husband while the then-teens attended a 7th Day Adventists Youth camp.

In 1945, the couple moved to Roseburg, where they became “very active” within their church, Fink says. They were married for 79 years before Peggy’s husband died at age 100 in 2021.

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But Peggy remained committed to the community even after her husband’s death. Peggy would regularly swim at the YMCA, and eventually took part in parent-child swim classes with a friend.

After about a month, Peggy was informed that the instructor was moving out of the area and needed someone to take over. So, Peggy stepped up to cover the class — and she’s been teaching it ever since.

Peggy didn’t have much formal experience, either. A previous aquatic director informed Peggy, who was 46 at the time, that she was “too old” for the training.

Not to be deterred, Peggy took it upon herself to get a teaching certificate in Sutherlin, YMCA of Douglas County CEO Steven Stanfield tells PEOPLE.

Today, Peggy is still teaching classes at the same YMCA. She says she “loves to help” the moms and “work with their babies.”

“It makes me happy,” she says. “I’m glad to work with the kids [and] the babies …and I enjoy the relationship that I have with the parents.”

The relationships she’s developed while working are her favorite part of the job. “The parents, and the babies, and the lifeguards who are standing there watching, and all of the people that I meet from day to-day,” she adds.

There are many reasons why Peggy believes she has remained fit and healthy — and staying active is one of them.

She typically works Mondays and Wednesdays, but comes back to the YMCA on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to swim.

While getting rest is important, Peggy says that she wouldn’t change anything about her active lifestyle. Above all, she doesn’t want to “stay home and do nothing” all day.

“At this age I can be very lazy, and this way I come over and do my swimming or teaching and I go home, and I feel good and I’m ready for the rest of the day,” she says. “It keeps me going.”

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