By: Rebecca Miller
108 YEARS! WOW! Mrs. Ruby Lockhart who has been a resident at Hillside Country living for the past six years has happy memories of her long life. Something she said that this writer has heard others in their later years say about how they lived so long…”I just lived.”
“Our family was great together, we didn’t have any problems.”
It makes one wonder if so many how to books and self help books and advice givers have only helped to make life more confusing and less simple. We try to so hard to have a happy life that maybe we forget to do what Ruby and her generation did…just live.
Ruby was born in Elkhart, Indiana to Ida and Andrew Clay. She was the second born of 7 children, with four brothers and two sisters. One sister is still living also. Her childhood was full and happy with memories of chasing a chicken at her grandmother’s house and catching it.
She remembers walking two blocks to grade school and what a “fabulous cook my mother was. She could cook anything and it would be good. My favorite thing she made was her vegetable soup.”
On November 4, 1933, Ruby married Barr Lockhart whom she had always known and with whom she had gone to school. Barr worked as an automobile salesman. She has three children, a son Eugene who lives in Seattle, a son James who lives in Huntington Beach, California and a daughter Lynne Wallace who lives in Montpelier. She is proud to say she has eleven grandchildren, too many great grandchildren to count and a lot of great great grandchildren.
She and Barr raised their family in Montpelier, with Ruby loving her years as a homemaker who raised her children. “We lived across the street from a park where my children would play and I could go out on the front porch and call for them when lunch was ready.” She attended a Methodist Church in Montpelier.
About her six years at Hillside, Ruby said that she likes that “it is clean and that everybody is so nice to you.”
Reminiscing about her life she said, “I sit here and I think about raising my family, it was great. I remember being afraid that my father would have to go to war (during the World Wars). The Great Depression didn’t really hurt us because we were a railroad town. Most of the men were able to keep their jobs.”
Her thoughts about this pandemic, which she has lived to see, were, “It’s scary because it is spreading so fast and taking so many people. People need to stay home!”
Lets take the advice from this lovely lady who has lived so long, and “Just live.”
Happy Birthday, Ruby! We honor you this week as you celebrate 108 years on May 17, 2020.
Rebecca can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com