More than 100 family and friends attended a surprise party Jan. 6 to celebrate Ruth New-hard’s 90th birthday.

The event was hosted by her children at the Northern Valley Ambulance headquarters in Ormrod.

“The surprise was a success,” Pamela Fatzinger emailed The Press.

Fatzinger said they choose NOVA’s headquarters for her mom’s special day because Marie Dean, who runs the ladies auxiliary at the ambulance corps headquarters, is a good friend of her mother.

“Marie actually helped us make it a surprise by telling mom there was bingo that night,” Fatzinger said.

She also said with all the kids in her family, and her brother, Dean, deejaying, the hall was the perfect place for them to have a great time.

Newhard was raised in Northampton, in the home where her twin brother continued to live after their parents died.

Newhard and her lifelong soul mate, Leroy, married April 30, 1949.

They celebrated 50 years together before his death in 1999.

“My mother did not graduate from high school,” Fatzinger said.

“Instead she quit in ninth grade to help support the family, cleaning for a doctor.”

Newhard worked at Cross Country Clothes from 1940-49 and also drove a 66-passenger bus for Leibensperger Transportation and the Northampton Area School District during the 1970s, before buses became automatic shift.

She then drove a van for Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 in 1980s, before retiring in 1990.

Newhard has six children, 14 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.