It’s always been challenging to find a place big enough to celebrate the life of Trinidad Ramirez Carrasco.

Not only did she live to be 108 — one of San Jose’s eldest residents — but when her family gathers Sunday to memorialize the matriarch with the homemade tortilla recipe and love of fashion, there will be a total of 108 grandchildren (34), great-grandchildren (50) and great-great-grandchildren (24).

Oh, and seven children.

On Christmas, all that love could get a bit overwhelming — with mountains of cards spilling off her mantel. So for her funeral, she told her family not to bring bouquets — just one single flower.

There will be no shortage of roses.

“Everybody will be at her funeral,” says Anna Melo, Trinidad’s granddaughter.

Cousins will fly in from Hawaii, nephews from Texas and aunts and uncles will arrive from right here in San Jose — from the eldest child, Anita Ramirez, 85, to the youngest great-great-grandchild, Luke Vargas, 6 months old.

Over the course of her 108 years, Trinidad had witnessed some of America’s most remarkable periods. Migrating to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 7, she escaped the devastating 1938 floods in Los Angeles, picked fruits in the sprawling orchards of Santa Clara County’s Valley of the Heart’s Delight, and collected medals from brothers sent to fight in the Second World War. She became a U.S. citizen when she was nearly 90, after more than eight decades of living in the United States.

Her family had been coming together like this for years. Trinidad’s birthdays gave them a reason to. By her 95th, her children realized that each one was an achievement, an extra cause for celebration. The only challenge was finding a spacious place to host it.

The San Jose house just south of downtown where she and her husband Francisco raised their seven children could no longer hold her entire family.

So for each of Trinidad’s themed birthday parties up until her 107th, dozens of family members from toddlers to 70-year-olds put on cowboy hats, leis and fascinators and spilled out into parks and banquet halls to celebrate.

“Seeing five generations all together was really remarkable,” says daughter Anita Ramirez Carrasco.

In 1949, Anita was a teen when the family moved to San Jose from Buttonwillow in the Central Valley after her parents decided to trade Bakersfield cotton picking for the fruit harvesting of the Santa Clara Valley.

Upon settling here, the couple bought a Victorian house in San Jose for $18,000 in 1951. And while Francisco ranched at the Teresi prune orchard near Winchester Avenue, Trinidad put on a white dress, white gloves and hairnet and set off on the 16-minute walk to the Del Monte cannery on Auzerais Avenue.

“I was so afraid that when she was crossing the railroad tracks to the cannery, a train might come,” Anita remembers thinking back then. Like many of San Jose’s women-in-white, Trinidad walked.

Over the years, she never ended up getting her driver’s license, which may have been a secret to her long life. When asked by others how she managed to live past 100, she would give her three cardinal rules. “Don’t drink, don’t curse – and don’t drive,” said her son, Frank Carrasco, 75.

Whatever her secret, her longevity put her in rare company. Centenarians made up 1/100th of a percent of California’s population, according to the 2010 Census. Santa Clara County has just fewer than 300 centenarians — 223 of which are women. The 2010 Census listed only two women in the county as 110 or older.

Perhaps Trinidad’s older sister had a secret to longevity too: Juanita Ramirez Hernandez also lived past 100, passing away six years ago when she was 105.

The sisters’ long lives have since become the subject of family fascination, and while grand-daughter Margie Santamaria, 60, thinks it could have been the cinnamon-infused tea their grandmother drank every morning, her cousin Melo can’t help but think it was her grandmother’s great capacity for love that helped her live years past 100.

And though there were more than one hundred family members to love, the number never fazed her. Affording Christmas presents for everyone, however, was a challenge, so Trinidad found creative ways to show each of the kids love and attention.

She gave out mandarins to the little ones before giving out little cards she made with her granddaughters. And when Trinidad began to have difficulty walking, she would collect candy to keep by her bed and give out treats to the great-great-grandkids who would visit her.

Nine-year-old Alina Revelez cherished those treats but couldn’t even count to her great-great-grandmother’s age. She will be returning the favor Sunday, when the family assembles one more time for Trinidad at the Lima Family Erickson Memorial Chapel.

She’ll be sure to bring a rose along.