|
Amy Whitt
Eunice Oxspring Turns 103
Oct. 3 is just another day to some folks. Even as a birthday,
anniversary or day of remembrance, nothing compares to the celebration
of someone who has lived for more than a century.
Eunice Oxspring celebrated living more than 100 years three times over
on Saturday. Oxspring, now 103, lived through it all — floods,
depressions and relocation — but said it never affected her.
“We had a good life,” Oxspring said. “We didn’t know we were missing
anything. We always had plenty to eat, plenty to wear. We didn’t do
without.”
Oxspring grew up with seven brothers and sisters. A middle child, she is
the only one remaining out of her 10-person family.
She grew up in Louisiana along the Mississippi River. But one levee
failure changed all that.
“The levee broke on the Mississippi, and it flooded for miles,” Oxspring
said. “Dad and the men were getting the livestock out, and the women
were left at home. The Red Cross came in on Sunday night and got us out.
We had to leave. All the houses got water in them except ours. All the
men came to our house, but all the women were gone. That was 1922.”
Her family moved into Houston where she spent most of her childhood.
Barbara McKee, Oxspring’s daughter, said that’s where she met her
eventual husband. He would play in a Dixieland band at Houston’s
Majestic Theater while they were courting and would often come home late
at night.
“They didn’t have a telephone,” McKee said. “So mother would know that
he had gotten home at midnight from his job. She would keep her window
cracked open, and daddy would open his window. He would play ‘Let Me
Call You Sweetheart’ every night. Then she would know he made it home
okay.”
Oxspring said she has been blessed all her life and was always taken
care of by her family and children.
She has two children, four grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren and
four great grandchildren.
As for her secret to a long life, “there is no secret,” Oxspring
laughed. “You’ll have to find out.”
|
Home |
Top |
|
