Robertson celebrates her 105th birthday at the Misericordia Health Centre with her great-grandson Jordan Peixoto, 23. (JASON HALSTEAD/Sun Media)

She was born in Saskatchewan when it was still called the Northwest Territories.

She credits clean living, exercise and religion for her longevity. And Ellen Isabella Robertson thanks God every day that she's still around after 105 years.

The Winnipeg woman and her sister Sarah -- marking the occasion separately at her home in Arizona -- yesterday celebrated their long lives, which have put them in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest living twins.

Surrounded by family, well-wishers, birthday cards and notes of congratulations at Misericordia Health Centre, Robertson -- who turned 105 on Tuesday -- shared her feelings on her durability.

"You don't even think about it. You just gradually get there. But believe me, I'm grateful," adding she gives thanks each morning "for the new day."

Just three weeks after suffering a stroke, Robertson was animated and excited about the occasion, which brought a crush of reporters and photographers into her room in an interim care wing at the hospital, where she has lived for five months.

Though sister Sarah Jeanmougin had become too frail to travel to Winnipeg to celebrate, Robertson spoke fondly of her fraternal twin, with whom she grew up on Spence Street following their family's move from what's now Wolseley, Sask., when they were eight years old.

As Robertson's family pointed out in old photos, the sisters dressed identically while in school and for lessons in music, drama and dance.

'LOVED TO DANCE'

"We loved to dance, in Winnipeg Beach and Grand Beach. That's a long time ago," she said.

Becoming a stenographer, Robertson eventually made her way to Boston as a young woman and lived there for 19 months before returning to Manitoba.

Her father Walter was a newspaper editor who had 10 kids in all and died when the twins were four.

In more recent years, Robertson -- a mother of three -- taught fitness classes and pedalled an estimated hundreds of thousands of kilometres on an exercise bicycle. She gave up her classes in 1994.

"Until three weeks ago, she was running down the hall," said her son Dixon Robertson, 74. "Actually, they're getting her to walk again with someone holding onto her just in case she falls."

Dixon and sister Elizabeth Koley pointed to a Guinness record certificate for the twins and birthday cards their mom received from the Queen.

Jordan Peixoto, Ellen Robertson's 23-year-old great-grandson, said genes have helped her thrive, in addition to "religion, reading and playing cards."

Ellen Robertson, whose husband died in his mid-50s, is waiting for a move to a seniors home in East Kildonan.

After so many decades, the ageless woman didn't hesitate when asked about Winnipeg's biggest difference between her childhood and today.

"Cars, cars everywhere -- hundreds of cars," she said of the present.