If Cherry Grove Road seems an unusual name for the entry road to a Southwestern Michigan College campus carved out of cornfields, ask Rose C. Pischalko.

Rose, turning 100 on Father’s Day, came to farm there in 1938.

In fact, she lived on the farm at the corner of M-62 and Cherry Grove until last year, according to her granddaughter, Theresa Savidge, who opened The Gift of Namaste June 1 in downtown Dowagiac.

Rose, matriarch of a Hungarian clan in South Bend, Ind., where she was born, was married to Steve J. Pischalko for just shy of 62 years before he passed away on May 18, 1992.

Her family includes two children, seven grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and “12 1/2” great-grandchildren because the birth of the 13th is expected Labor Day weekend.

When we dropped in on Rose Thursday afternoon at Forest Glen Assisted Living, she’d just had her hair done and not only played bingo, but won the cover-all game, thanks to good luck brought by a granddaughter visiting from Washington state.

Rose can look forward to sort of a weekend doubleheader at Forest Glen, since there is a Father’s Day cookout with a tent on Saturday and her family observing her centennial on Sunday, her actual birthday (June 19, 1911).

“We had everything” on their farm, Rose said. “We had an orchard,” including cherries. “Birds carried the seeds and those trees came up really nice. The college wanted to buy that farm so badly, but the kids wanted to keep it in the family because they remember so much about being out there all the time.”

Rose was a city girl who worked in a shirt factory before settling into rural life. Other family members worked for Studebaker in South Bend.

Heading for Grandma’s farm became a Sunday family tradition.

“I enjoyed every minute” of farm life, Rose said, even when the tractor didn’t want to start.

At Forest Glen, “I try to make it to all the things I possibly can,” she said.

“She does,” agreed four-year Activities Director Corey Morrow. “We go on outings. We’ve been to Round Oak, to Wal-Mart shopping. She exercises and plays bingo. She’s very active — more so than some of my younger residents. Just recently, she’s been counseling the knitting class we just started. She and her daughter both knit.”

Rose comes from a work ethic of “getting the little one off to school, then go milk cows” or pitching hay.

In those days, a tractor might be driven by a 9-year-old girl.

“They wouldn’t allow that today,” she laughed. “They’d hang us.”