Aizpute teacher Mirdza Birzniece celebrates her 100th birthday

Mirdza Birzniece, a teacher and writer from Aizpute, has celebrated her 100th birthday and says she is still interested in life, LSM reports. She taught Latvian language and literature and is also a local historian, folklorist and publicist.

Birzniece has spent most of her life in Aizpute, apart from her student years in Riga. She recalls growing up near Misiņkalns in a home full of children, where there was sometimes barely time to eat before going outside to play.

She began reciting poetry in first grade and continued through the end of secondary school. She still remembers lines from the first poem she performed, which began: “Little doll, you came to sit on my lap!”

Her family fled when Latvia’s freedom was interrupted by occupation. Birzniece remembers seeing a road filled with people carrying what they could, pushing carts and bicycles, or holding their belongings in their hands.

She has had 11 books published, with three more in manuscript. One is a book about her life, which she is preparing for publication. She describes her life in two words: “Just a teacher.”

Birzniece said she turned down offers to become a school principal and to work at a ministry because she wanted to remain a teacher. Latvia’s restoration of independence was deeply emotional for her. She recalled sitting on her sofa reading when she heard a song on television that she had not heard for 50 years, and immediately stood up.