Mom turns 107

By David Maurer

Published: May 11, 2008

A couple of months ago, at the age of 106, Mollie Mae Wood put on her walking shoes and made a suggestion to her 84-year-old daughter.

“Let’s go visiting,” said Mrs. Wood, who celebrated her 107th birthday April 26.

“Where are we going, Mama?” Louise Minter asked. “Everybody is dead.”

The daughter was referring to her mother’s long-time friends and relatives who lived in the Boonesville area, where she grew up. Undismayed, and being her normal dauntless self, Mrs. Wood answered with an upbeat reply.

“Well, let’s go to the cemetery then.”

And so they did. And as they strolled through the old graveyard, familiar names on headstones brought back memories of moments long past, and dear people still deeply loved.

“Momma told me her first memory was when she was 3,” Mrs. Minter said as she enjoyed a morning cup of coffee in her Belmont-neighborhood home. “She had a sister named Lily who was 11.

“Then Lily died, and she said she remembered everybody was crying and she knew something sad had happened. She said she went around and sat on the front steps of the house, and my grandmother missed her and came around and, there she sat.”

Today is Mother’s Day, and children across the nation will honor their mothers in special ways. Mrs. Wood showed her three daughters the love she had for them in countless ways.

As her mother slept contentedly in a nearby room, Mrs. Minter recalled an incident that occurred 80 years ago and came close to ending her young life on a Charlottesville street. She clearly remembers it not so much for the shock it caused, but because of her mother’s embracing arms that made everything right again.

“I was 4 and just starting Sunday school,” said Mrs. Minter, who can see the house she grew up in from the back door of her home. “Momma told my two older sisters to get me in the middle and hold my hands.

“When we came to a street we had to cross, one of my sisters jerked loose and ran across. So I jerked loose and ran after her and ran right into the side of a car.

“I jumped up on the running board and tried to climb my way up, but I fell off. When that man stopped the car the back wheel was brushing my dress. We went on to Sunday school, but I got to crying and the teacher brought me home.

“I’ll never forget it, because when I got home Momma sat on the front porch with me in her lap and rocked me for the longest time. Being held in her arms like that made me feel so safe.”

Mrs. Wood was born in Boonesville on April 26, 1901. Her father, Robert L. Wood, was a farmer who raised mostly corn. Family lore has it that he was better at overseeing work than actually doing it.

“Momma had eight brothers and sisters,” Mrs. Minter said. “She said he’d put the children out in the field to thin the corn in the hot sun while he sat under the shade tree and oversaw the whole thing.

“Another thing she has talked about all her life was when they all had the measles. It had rained and the creek got up so high that they couldn’t get the cow in the pasture.

“Grandpa sent Grandma through that water to get the cow, and he stayed in the house. She remembers that.”

One of the defining moments that revealed Mrs. Wood’s grit and character came when she was 24 years old. She had married her late husband, Charles “Charlie” Wood, when she was 19 and they settled in the Belmont neighborhood in 1920.

The 26-year-old Wood worked for Railway Express, and life was good for the young couple. Then on March 10, 1924, to Wood’s horror, he suddenly became paralyzed from the waist down.

The dreaded scourge of polio had hit him without warning, and he suddenly found himself in a bed at the University of Virginia Hospital. One can imagine the heartbreaking scene of the wife, eight months’ pregnant, holding their 16-month-old baby as their 3-year-old daughter got up on her tiptoes to see her father’s face.

By June the doctors had done all they could for the young man and sent him home in a wheelchair. Their prognosis was that he would be an invalid for the rest of his life.

What followed is written deep into the family’s proud history. Wood refused to accept what the doctors told him would be his fate, and his wife refused to separate the family.

“Back then when people got on hard times like that there was no charity like there is now,” Mrs. Minter said. “But Momma somehow held us all together, and she worked her fingers to the bone to do it.

“When Daddy came home, he gave himself therapy. He got out of that wheelchair and got himself some crutches. He used them for a while, threw them away and got himself a walking cane.

“He walked with that for a time, threw that away and went on about his business. He would always drag his feet, because he couldn’t lift them. But the railroad let him come back to work, and he worked for them for 44 years.”

When Mrs. Wood recently was asked what the happiest time in her life had been, she didn’t have to think more than a second or two.

“When I was married to my husband was the happiest time of my life,” Mrs. Wood said. “I never thought I’d live to be this old.”

Mrs. Wood has less than three years to go to achieve the extremely rare status of being a super-centenarian. The term refers to people who have reached the age of 110 or more. Only about 1 in 1,000 centenarians reach this milestone, and only about 2 percent of super-centenarians live to be 115.

The oldest recognized and verified person living in the world today is 115-year-old Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Ind. She is said to be one of only 24 people validated to have reached 115.

Mrs. Wood is certainly in the running for the record books. Her only surviving daughter said she is in good health, doesn’t have a pain, sleeps like a baby and still puts the food away.

When Mrs. Wood’s recent birthday came around all she wanted was some peanut brittle, a red dress and a fried chicken dinner at Hardee’s.

“Going to Hardee’s doesn’t sound like much, but to Momma that’s a big treat,” Mrs. Minter said. “She likes their chicken.

“We didn’t have much money when I was growing up, but we always had plenty to eat. Momma always planted a big garden, and she canned, so our table was always full.

“And every Saturday she always gave me and my two sisters 15 cents each. Ten cents was for the movie, and 5 cents was to get something good to eat. It was always such a hard decision deciding what to get for that nickel.”

When Mrs. Wood was born, there were only a handful of horseless carriages in operation throughout the state. When World War II ended, she decided to join the ranks of automobile drivers.

“What’s now Avon Extended was an old dirt road with ruts this deep,” Mrs. Minter said, holding her hands a foot apart. “Daddy had this old Jeep, and when Momma said she wanted to learn how to drive, he took her out there.

“When they got back he said, ‘Dear, it’s going to be a long time before you ever go down Main Street.’ Three weeks later Momma drove down Main Street, and that was a vehicle where you had to use the clutch to shift the gears.

“She drove until she was 95 and never got a ticket or had an accident. Her last car was a 1970 Chevy II. She drove that thing, too.”

Mrs. Wood voluntarily gave up her car keys. She told her daughter that she realized she was getting old, and she was scared she’d have a wreck and hurt somebody.

The centenarian is proud to have lived to be her age. She credits her longevity to eating plenty of vegetables, drinking a lot of water and never having smoked or drunk alcohol.

The daughter said her mother also kept a sharp eye on her figure. She liked to stay at 135 pounds, and if she got a pound over that mark, she’d cut back on eating until the extra weight was gone.

That would have been particularly tough, considering she was known far and wide for her great cooking. She also was known for the kindness she showed her children’s friends and for her frequent visits to the sick.

For all her kindness to others, Mrs. Wood took great pride in her own children. She currently has nine grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, 22 great-great-grandchildren and one great-great-great-grandchild.

During the recent stroll through the cemetery in Boonesville, Mrs. Wood’s mind was flooded with memories. She remembered when she was 11 and a neighbor who had been to town told them about the sinking of the Titanic.

The family came into Charlottesville to learn more about the tragedy. Mrs. Wood remembered seeing people on the street crying openly.

But for every bad memory there were many more good ones. And some of the best are the little moments so true and pure that they stay with a person for a lifetime.

“I took piano lessons in grade school,” Mrs. Minter said after being asked about some of the special moments she and her mother have shared. “When I graduated from Clark Elementary School, I played the ‘Fairy Wedding Waltz’ at the ceremony. I never made a mistake, and when I got through and was going back to my seat I looked out in the audience and saw Momma. Her eyes were just sparkling, because she was so pleased and proud of me.

“Memories like that make me wonder what life would be like without Momma. There’s not many people 84 years old who can still say they have their mother, and I feel so fortunate that I can.”