Friends and family like to say that Alma Tofft was a survivor of an era gone by – one of Lincoln’s last true ladies.

Tofft, the last fourth-generation spouse of the well-known Lincoln pioneer family, died at the home of her daughter-in-law, Pattie Tofft, on Aug. 18 at age 94.

“She was just a very loving and very sweet lady,” Pattie said. “And I do mean a lady. We don’t raise our daughters like that anymore.”

Tofft was born Alma Taber in Woodland and graduated from Sacramento High School in 1931. She joined the Tofft family in 1936, when she wed Robert Tofft of Lincoln.

“There’s a lot of Tofft history in this town, and she was very proud of that,” said her son, John Tofft.

Shortly after, the couple moved into a 1915 home originally built by the Jansen family in the 400 block of J Street, where she would live for the next 63 years. Just recently, John finished a painstaking restoration of the property.

“All of her friends teased, ‘What are you going to do in that one-horse town?” John said. “As soon as she moved here into this house, they all wanted to come visit. My mother loved her house.”

John described a near storybook-perfect childhood in the then-small town, where the Toffts were close friends with the Jansens, the Flemings and many other prominent Lincoln clans that lived nearby.

“I don’t ever remember my parents fighting,” he said. “Growing up, I didn’t know what divorce was. I think my mother was very lucky she married my dad, and he was lucky she married him.”

Tofft briefly worked in her husband’s hardware store, Tofft Hardware, before becoming a homemaker after the birth of her children, John and daughter Pam Reader.

She was a Cub Scout den mother and a frequent library volunteer who was always impeccably dressed, took only small portions at meals and actively played bridge.

“Everyone was very proper then,” John said. “When they went out, they were dressed right.”

Her grace extended to her personality as well, he said.

“I don’t remember her ever saying anything bad about anybody,” John said.

It was that character that compelled Laura Jansen, the daughter of Tofft’s late next-door neighbor and good friend Joan Jansen, to call Tofft every night after Joan died.

“She could be mad at someone, just spitting mad, but if they walked into the room you wouldn’t even know it,” she said. “She would only be kind to them. That’s something I admire … even though I was a lot younger, we were very good friends.”

In contrast to her usually demure demeanor, Tofft was wild about sports, particularly football. She would lovingly tease her son, an avid baseball fan, when the San Francisco Giants lost a game.

She enjoyed shopping and visiting Joan Jansen up until her neighbor’s death, and in the evenings, the two women would travel back and forth between their homes for popcorn and cocktails – vodka for Tofft and tequila for Jansen.

“They were just two wonderful silly ladies,” said daughter-in-law Pattie.

When it became difficult for Tofft to live alone, she moved in with Pattie, where she spent the last seven years of her life in the company of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“It was a very chaotic household, but the different generations meshed really well,” Pattie said.

Pattie, a self-described workaholic, said Tofft often cautioned her to take it easy.

“I would be working in my yard and Nana would go back and forth through the windows to check on me,” she said. “I don’t know what she thought – if I would disappear or hurt myself – but she would watch and rap on the window when she thought it was time for me to stop.”

She added, “I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful mother-in-law. We were very, very close.”

In the last few decades, Tofft watched as her husband and most of her friends died – one of the sad realities of a long, happy life. But despite the emotional and physical pain, she never complained, her son said.

“She was always positive,” he said. “If she wasn’t feeling good, she would say, ‘I’ll feel better tomorrow.’”