At age 104 years old, Evelyn Buck has a few things she has kept consistent over the years. She refuses to wear a hearing aid, she watches baseball religiously and still uses her family’s method for jarring her own jam.

That jam will be for sale at the Corinthian House’s annual Holiday Bazaar on Nov. 5. The sale has been a staple at the senior independent living facility since Buck moved there in 2000.

“When I moved here they needed somebody to help,” Buck said in an interview with this newspaper at her second-floor apartment in the Corinthian campus. “I’m very strong with organization. I volunteered and I’ve been volunteering for every year since.”

The annual Holiday Bazaar features resident made items such as jewelry, crafts and baked goods. Residents also sell used books and videos.

In 2002 Buck started selling her famous jam at the bazaar. She makes it in her apartment and says each batch can take up to three hours to make. In a hallway closet located in her apartment she has more than 70 jars of jam and plenty more to fill.

Each jar sells for $4 each and demand has grown steadily over the years.

“It just grew and grew,” Buck says. “I make eight flavors now.”

Buck attributes her jam-making skills to her upbringing.

“During the Depression we canned and jarred everything if we had extra,” she said, adding her “old fashioned” method for preserving her jam is much simpler than today’s recipes. “The way we did it then was so simple.”

Buck was born in 1912 in Stockton and moved to Milton Avenue in Campbell in 1940 when her late husband was employed by one of the packing plants. Fruit has been a big part of the family life.

“My boys cut fruit and I cut fruit during that time,” she said. “We’d cut the fruit and lay the fruit on a great big tray in the sun to dry. I worked in the canneries all through the war.”

In 1960, Buck’s husband died and she raised her three sons on her own. When her children left the nest, she ventured to 100 different countries by plane and by ship while working for a travel agency.

“My favorite country is Mexico,” Buck said, adding she’d like to visit India. “I specialized in Mexico and cruises.”

She still travels, but mainly to visit her children, grand children, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren domestically.

When Buck isn’t spending her days cooking an assortment of jams or planning future travels, she spends time knitting for the Grateful Garment Project. Knitted slippers that are not sold at the bazaar will be donated to the project.

“I knit for them all year long,” she said.

Knitting, jarring and travelling are some of the activities Buck attributes to her liveliness.

“I also have a mantra,” Buck said. “You’ve got to live with an attitude of gratitude. You have to be thankful for what you have and quit bellyaching about the stuff you don’t have.”

Buck is one of the 14 different sellers that will be at the bazaar. She said one resident will be making Filipino food and another will sell pure, homemade vanilla extract.

“We’ll also have our famous $5 lunch,” Buck said, adding that it includes a full sandwich and any item off a baked goods table.

Corinthian House’s annual Holiday Bazaar is open to all and will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is located at 250 Budd Ave. in Campbell.