100 Years of Independence: Celebrating Elsa’s Remarkable Life

For the team at SAAR Health & Social Care, it is a particularly meaningful birthday. We have had the privilege of caring for Elsa for around three years, supporting her to continue living where she most wants to be — in the comfort and familiarity of her own home.

And when you hear Elsa’s story, perhaps it is no surprise that independence has remained so important to her.

Born in Indonesia in 1926 to a Dutch father and Danish mother, Elsa spent her childhood surrounded by a very different world from the one she lives in today. Her father managed a coffee plantation, and Elsa was educated first privately and later at boarding school.

Her young life was dramatically changed by the Second World War.

At the age of just 18, Elsa and her mother were taken to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, while her father was sent elsewhere. She endured circumstances that are difficult for later generations to imagine, yet survived this extraordinary period of hardship.

After the war, the family was reunited and returned to the Netherlands, where Elsa began building a new life.

She started working and eventually met the man who would become her husband. Together they had a son. Life, however, presented Elsa with another great challenge when her husband developed Parkinson’s disease at a relatively young age. She was widowed many years ago and has spent around four decades navigating life independently.

When her son later moved to South Africa for work, Elsa followed him there. After several years, however, she decided South Africa was not where she wanted to spend the rest of her life and returned to the Netherlands.

Then, at an age when many people might be thinking about slowing down, Elsa embarked on another adventure.

At around 80 years old, she decided she wanted to make a new home for herself in southern Europe and moved to Portugal, settling into her own house in Beneciate.

Independence has been a thread running throughout Elsa’s life. Comfortable in her own company since her childhood in Indonesia, she has always had an active and curious mind. She enjoyed knitting and making her own clothes, learning languages and following world affairs, as well as taking an interest in the wider world around her.

Our paths crossed with Elsa around three years ago when she was staying in a Portuguese residential care facility. The institutional environment simply wasn’t right for this fiercely independent lady, and Elsa made it very clear that it was not where she wanted to remain.

After approximately two weeks there, the decision was made to bring her back to the place where she felt she belonged: her own home.

Since then, SAAR has had the privilege of supporting Elsa with person-centred care in familiar surroundings, adapting the support around her rather than expecting Elsa to adapt to an institution.

For us, her story represents something very important about ageing.

Reaching an advanced age does not erase someone’s personality, history, preferences or right to make choices about how they live. Behind every person receiving care is an entire lifetime of experiences — relationships, adventures, hardships, achievements and memories.

And Elsa has accumulated almost a century of them.

From a childhood on a coffee plantation in Indonesia, through the hardship of wartime imprisonment, rebuilding her life in the Netherlands, marriage and motherhood, years in South Africa and eventually beginning yet another chapter in Portugal at the age of 80, Elsa’s journey has crossed countries, cultures and generations.

On 22 October 2026, that journey reaches an extraordinary milestone.

From everyone at SAAR Health & Social Care, and particularly from the carers who have become part of Elsa’s daily life over the past three years:

Happy 100th Birthday, Elsa.

It has been our privilege to accompany you on this small part of your very remarkable journey.

Here’s to 100 years of resilience, curiosity, independence — and a life very much lived on your own terms.