PROVO — Back when a flying machine was a brand new thought, before nylons were invented and when the radio had just made its first broadcast, Lorna Alder was born.

Sitting in a chair at her Provo house with a walker in front of her, Alder, 103, spoke recently about how her life has changed over the years — and how to stay busy helping others no matter how old you are.

She didn't have electricity, a TV or a computer growing up. She said she still doesn't know much about computers, but she's loved to see science progress.

"It was wonderful when we first got a radio," she said. "These things were just being invented."

Alder grew up in the Mormon colonies in Mexico, and her family fled that country three separate times during the Mexican Revolution. She remembers hiding her family's valuables in the stove and the pump organ, so when the armies would ransack their house, they wouldn't be able to find them.

She told of Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionist, coming to her home asking for some watermelons.

"They weren't ripe enough," she said, "so daddy took him to the neighbor's house for some grapes."

Alder went to BYU for her undergraduate degree and then to Columbia University in New York for her master's.

Her younger brother, Eran Call, 79, said he admires his sister for getting a higher education. He said back in the late '30s, women from Utah didn't go to the East to get a higher education, but his sister did.

"Learning has always been a great thing with me," Alder siad. "I've always been anxious to learn. If there was anything new, I wanted to get ahold of it. I find I still have so much to learn."

Alder was an art teacher at BYU's grade school and then an elementary education and art education professor at BYU. She taught at BYU for a total of 30 years, said her sister, Fulvia Law, 92.

Another sister, Ruth Evans, 83, remembers living with Alder while attending BYU after her mission. She said everyone who wanted to be a teacher had to take Alder's class. Evans said people still come up to her and say her sister's class was their favorite at BYU.

Evans was only 11 when her mother died, and Alder was a mother figure to her and her younger siblings growing up.

She remembers Alder buying the younger members of the family clothes over the summer, and even buying her a dress for the junior prom in high school. She said Alder also took care of everything for her to go to college — Alder found her an apartment and sent her $30 a month for rent.

"If someone needed something, instead of using the money for herself, she would give it to them," Evans said. "I could talk for hours about the things she has done for others."