The Real Deal

When she arrived in this world in 1916, a postage stamp cost 2 cents, unemployment was 5.1%, and Woodrow Wilson was President of these United States. Coke had introduced its new drink formula to the public and a man named Albert Einstein had completed his mathematical formula of general relativity.   She was born to a homemaker mother and a blacksmith father.  A blacksmith who had his shop a modern day ten minute drive from my farm.  She bears the middle name of Bird and has dipped powdered snuff since she was a child.  

She had eight children at home, three of which died in infancy.  She lived in a home without regular plumbing until the late 1970's.  Yes, I can remember visits to the outhouse when I stayed with her as a kid.  She raised her food, canned and/or froze all of it.  She lived on little and wasted nothing.  She has fed myself and our entire extended family many, many a time.  I have never known her to complain. 

This weekend our family met to celebrate her 96th birthday.  Though she has trouble getting around physically, her mind is just as sharp as it ever was....and then some.  

She is The Real Deal, if there ever was such a thing.