Ida Davison, center, joins Salem State College administrators Jim Dennis, left and Tom Walker after the annual homecoming parade.

With Salem State this year marking its 150-year anniversary, Davison, of Peabody, was celebrating her 97 th birthday as she led off the parade riding in a '94 Ford Mustang convertible and carrying a sign that read, “Class of 1926.”

Davison's degree led to a teaching career that lasted over four decades. A newspaper in 1969 coined her “The Golden Lady” when a reporter wrote about her 42 years as an elementary teacher in Revere that were followed by volunteer work at the Shriners Burns Institute in Boston.

“I'll never forget my school where I received my education and training for my livelihood,” she wrote in a letter to the college. “The thrill of it all is that many of my pupils come to see me and tell me I was their mentor.”

Davison has been a resident at Woodbridge Assisted Living community in Peabody since it opened six years ago. Woodbridge is sponsored by the Jewish Rehabilitation Center for Aged of the North Shore, a short and long-term care facility in Swampscott. Davison also lived in Lynnfield, Florida and Pennsylvania.