For many East County residents, Oct. 2 will be a regular Tuesday. But for Brentwood resident Della Everett, Oct. 2 marks her 39,055th day on the planet. Everett is about to turn 107.

This week friends gathered to honor Everett’s milestone birthday at a reception filled with family, music and laughter. She suffered a stroke in July, but despite her limited speech, she said she enjoyed the party.

“This is very nice,” Everett said. “It’s wonderful.”

The party included cake and treats, hymns sung by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ Third Ward in Brentwood, and a visit from Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor, who bestowed a certificate of recognition to one of the city’s oldest residents.

Everett moved to Brentwood from Centerville, Utah in 2000 to live with daughter Della Wiscombe and her husband, Roy, at Summerset. Soon after arriving in California, Everett got a treadmill, and for the past 12 years she has walked a mile a day. She currently lives at a rehabilitation facility in Antioch while recovering from her stroke, but Wiscombe, who celebrated her 79th birthday on Monday, reports that her mother remains in good spirits.

“It slowed her down, but she still can’t sit still,” Wiscombe said. “She scoots up and down the hallways in her wheelchair.”

Marty Rudd, who hosted the mother-daughter birthday celebration at her Brentwood home, has been a friend of Everett for more than 10 years. She helped organize Everett’s 100th birthday celebration and couldn’t resist throwing another party to mark her friend’s 107th year.

“This is an incredible woman,” Rudd said. “She’s as smart as a whip. Her speech is limited, but you can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s always thinking. In the past months, we’ve developed our own form of communication so that we can understand each other. It’s just a pleasure to be in her company. She’s a sweet person.”

Rudd’s husband Brian agreed: “Della is simply delightful. She’s incredibly smart. Sharp as a tack. It never mattered what you were talking about; she always had something to say. She has a great sense of humor and a great laugh. It’s hard not to fall in love with her laugh.”

Everett was born in Ogden, Utah on Oct. 2, 1905 to Robert Bailey and Hannah Taylor. She graduated from Ogden High School in 1922 and married Charles Everett on Dec. 16, 1925. Together they had two daughters, Wiscombe and Jean Ellis (deceased). During World War II, she worked a Rosie the Riveter job at the Salt Lake City defense plant. She went on to work as an airplane-bearing inspector and head cook at an elementary school in Centerville, where she served until she retired in 1965.

Everett has seven grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great-grandchildren.