Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2002 | 8:24 a.m.
Alice Turner, it seems, always was ahead of her time.
When University Medical Center opened its AIDS clinic in the 1980s, she was credited with being its first volunteer.
She drove a car from age 13 until she was 98. She made arts and crafts that were sold to help support abandoned and abused children until she was 102.
Born five years before Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the first engine-driven plane at Kitty Hawk, N.C., she wound up flying as a commercial passenger to the four corners of the Earth.
Alice Turner, who saw the sun rise on three centuries and in 2000 was named a Distinguished Nevadan by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, died Saturday at her Las Vegas home of natural causes. She had turned 104 two weeks ago.
Services for the Las Vegas resident of 66 years will be 10 a.m. Monday at Guardian Angel Cathedral. A rosary will be said at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Palm Mortuary Downtown. Interment will be in Palm Memorial Park.
"My mother always felt compassion for people," said her 77-year-old son, Thomas Turner of Las Vegas. "And if you ever invited her to a party, you better have been ready for her because she would have gone and she would have entertained everyone with her stories."
In a Nov. 13, 1999, Las Vegas Sun story, Turner said she felt someone had to offer to lend comfort to AIDS patients at a time when AIDS was very much misunderstood -- even if it was just a well-meaning octogenarian.
"I didn't volunteer with the intent to be the first," Turner told the Sun. "I did it because these people needed someone to talk to. They seemed to like talking to an outsider, especially those whose families had deserted them.
"I have a very strong feeling that when you are given so much in life you should return something to the community, no matter how old you are."
Born Alice Bacon on Nov. 23, 1898, on a farm outside Sanger, Calif., she was the eldest of four children of John Bacon, a farmer and San Francisco cable car operator, and the former Anna Swann. Her three brothers preceded her in death.
Alice fell in love with the automobile at age 8 when she got her first ride in a friend's vehicle. Asked if it was a bumpy ride, she would say: "Not after you had ridden in a horse and buggy!"
She learned at age 13 to drive the family's Model T Ford and got her driver's license three years later.
After graduating from high school, Turner went to St. Joseph Hospital in Denver where she earned her nursing degree. However, she quit working a short time later, after marrying Standard Oil executive Clesse Turner.
They moved to Las Vegas in 1937 when Clesse became the company's Southern Nevada branch manager.
"There were about 6,000, maybe 7,000 people here back then,' Turner said in a 1999 interview. "For entertainment, we used to walk up and down Fremont Street on Saturday nights. There was no Strip back then and not many of the streets were paved."
Clesse died in 1970 and Turner spent the next three decades as a community volunteer and activist for children's rights. She was a familiar face at Child Haven for many years, making birthday cakes and coordinating parties.
Up until two years ago, Turner went to Child Haven every Tuesday to make crafts for the Clark County Children's Service Guild to sell at fund-raisers.
A world traveler, she long believed the greatest accomplishment of the 20th century was aviation. "It has brought the world together," she said.
Turner said the saddest moment of the 20th century was the assassination of President John Kennedy, a day before her 65th birthday.
Her secret to longevity, she said, was having never smoked and having long enjoyed two glasses of wine every night.
In addition to her son, Turner is survived by a daughter, Mary Alice Simpson of Chevy Chase, Md.; her companion and caregiver, Florence Bunning; six grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.
The family said donations can be made in Turner's memory to the Clark County Children's Services Guild or to Nathan Adelson Hospice.
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