From Atlantic City to Alaska, Marge Kortkamp’s remarkable life has crossed the country, spanned generations and continues to inspire.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — At 104 years old, Marjorie “Marge” Kortkamp has accumulated something few of us ever will: more than a century of memories.

She has witnessed history, crossed the country, raised four children, endured heartbreaking losses, welcomed new generations into her family and called places from New Jersey to Hawaii home.

And at 104, the journey continues.

This year, Marge’s birthday brought family together in Anchorage to celebrate a life that began in 1922, when Warren G. Harding was president, radio was still a relatively new technology in American homes and commercial television was years away.

Among those gathering to celebrate were Marge’s daughters, Diana Schilling and Janice Fearing, along with their husbands, Ed and Syd, and Marge’s son Larry Kortkamp. Other members of the extended family joined the celebration as well, surrounding the family matriarch with some of the people whose lives grew from the remarkable one she began more than a century ago.

Marge’s story was recently chronicled by journalist Paola Banchero in Senior Voice, following her journey from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to her present home at the Anchorage Pioneer Home.

But reaching 104 provides another opportunity to look at that journey—not as a story about where it ends, but about just how much life can fit between the beginning and today.

A Childhood That Now Belongs to History

Marge grew up in Atlantic City, where childhood meant spending hours at the beach with her siblings. Her mother had a wonderfully simple way of calling the children home for lunch: she hung a bedsheet in the window.

At 14, Marge witnessed something that would eventually become a page in history books.

She watched the German airship Hindenburg fly overhead as it traveled along the New Jersey coast. Shortly afterward, the massive zeppelin caught fire and crashed while attempting to land at Lakehurst Naval Station.

For most people alive today, the Hindenburg is grainy black-and-white newsreel footage.

For Marge, it is a childhood memory.

Her life would eventually take her far beyond the Jersey shore.

Heartbreak, Family and Starting Again

Marge’s long life has certainly not been without hardship.

Her first husband, Gene, died at only 27 years old, leaving Marge a young widow with two small children, Diana and Bruce.

During a flight aboard a DC-4 with the children to join her parents in California, an overwhelmed Marge encountered a woman she would remember more than seven decades later as an “angel in disguise.” The stranger stepped in and helped the young mother care for her children during the journey.

In California, Marge worked for Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips Petroleum Company. Her journey would eventually include Honolulu, Chicago and Arizona.

Life also brought a new beginning.

Marge married Allen Kortkamp, and the couple shared more than 30 years of marriage. Together they had two children, Janice and Larry, joining Diana and Bruce to make a family of four children.

Another difficult chapter came in 2022 when Bruce, her oldest son, passed away.

Across 104 years there have been celebrations and losses, beginnings and goodbyes. Through all of them, family has remained one of the constants of Marge’s life.

Finding Her Way to Alaska

Eventually Marge spent time living with Larry in Dallas and Janice in rural Virginia. But another adventure was waiting considerably farther north.

In 2005, Marge moved to Alaska to live with Diana. She has now called the Anchorage Pioneer Home home for approximately 16 years.

And she made it her business to get to know the people around her.

“When I came in, I said I want to know as many of these people as I can,” Marge recalled in the earlier Senior Voice profile.

She did just that, getting to know staff members, their families and fellow residents. She particularly enjoyed visits involving young children, attended church and even collected a bingo prize or two along the way.

Today, Marge has lost her vision and has significant hearing limitations, but those challenges haven’t erased the outgoing personality that has carried her through so many chapters of life.

Perhaps nothing captures that personality better than one small Alaska story.

While living with Diana in her mid-80s, Marge decided to venture outside on an icy, bitterly cold morning.

Diana understandably wondered what her mother was doing out there.

Marge’s explanation was wonderfully simple:

“But it’s sunny!”

There may be no better summary of the attitude that has accompanied her through 104 years.

The cold is real.

The ice is real.

So are loss, hardship and the unexpected turns that inevitably come with a life—particularly one stretching across more than a century.

But it’s sunny.

Marge has credited her faith and her family with helping sustain that outlook. And this year, some of that family traveled once again to Alaska—not because Alaska represents the end of Marge Kortkamp’s travels, but because it is where the family could gather to celebrate the latest milestone in an extraordinary journey.

One hundred and four years.

Four children. Generations of descendants. Countless miles. More stories than can possibly fit into one article.

And, thankfully, the journey is still going.

Happy 104th birthday, Marge.

Historical and biographical details for this story were drawn in part from Paola Banchero’s July 2026 Senior Voice profile, “Alaska is the final stop for well-traveled 103-year-old.” Read the original Senior Voice story⁠