Sadie Wilton’s story began with her birth, more than a century ago. As one of sixteen children born to her parents in South Carolina, she speaks lovingly of experiences with thirteen of them. Maddie and Phyllis were her two older sisters. She enjoyed being with her family, and remembers her mother and aunt cooking turkey for the holidays. Her father was a hard working man. While his sons worked the farm, he worked in town. His horse and four-seater surrey were their major means of transportation. Henry Ford had not yet rolled his first car off the assembly line, when Sadie was born. Then, too, the United States statistics reported the average life expectancy, at that time, to be forty-seven years!

Sadie had grown up on her parents’ farm in Bishopville. She very much enjoyed going to school. At the age of thirteen she had two boyfriends, and when Hammy Isaac asked her to marry him, her parents encouraged her to do so. At that time she was in the fourth grade. Sadie told her mother, “I don’t want to get married yet. I don’t want to be a woman”. But her mother reminded her, “You had better marry him, or you might be an old maid! Besides, mamma really liked his family.”

So, at thirteen she became Mrs. Sadie Jacobs. She and her family moved to where her husband’s family lived in North Carolina. The newlyweds stayed with his parents at first. Then, they were able to rent an apartment of their own. Harmond Jacobs was a hard working man. He held two jobs in order to support his wife and their three children. While Joseph, their son, died at age two, their daughters, LillyMae and Katherine (Kat), lived into adulthood. Her husband, Harm, took Sadie into town to shop and let her buy whatever she wanted. She bought beautiful clothes for herself, brightly colored dresses and high heeled shoes. She said, “If I saw something in a window I liked, he would surprise me and buy it for me. He was nice to me. I was happy.” When asked if she had worked outside the home she replied, “Oh no, Mr. Jacobs didn’t want me to work. He wanted me to take care of our home and raise our children.” She continued, “I knew how to take care of babies because I took care of my mamma’s babies: Newton, Payton, Rosa and Gladys.”

“After awhile, I got to love Harmmond.” He worked very hard at the plant but died of ‘black fever’ at the age of twenty-eight. He left Sadie with two young children to support. She moved back to South Carolina to live with her parents and have them help her raise her daughters. It was then she took the job of cleaning rooms at a local hotel. But soon she fell sick and had to have a tumor removed and a partial hysterectomy. She was no longer able to bear children. Her daddy was able to support them all as he had a very good paying job at the oil mill (refinery). He even had a car by then.

As she continued to recover her strength, her sisters would plait her long hair and fuss over her. During a trip into town, a widower caught sight of her. He had children who were already older than Sadie. He asked her father if he could call on her, as he needed a wife.
Sadie told her father, “I don’t want that old man”. But her father said, “You’re sick, he’s a widower and he’ll take care of you!”

Sadie thought long and hard about her father’s words. She was now in her thirties and recognized that she did need to marry somebody who would take care of her and her two children. Two weeks later, she agreed to see Frank. He then began to court her twice a week until they married. Her daughter Kat lived with them, while LillyMae continued to stay with her grandparents.

In her first one hundred years of life, Sadie Wilton had never worn slacks or pants of any type. When Gerry, her step-granddaughter, prepared to bring Grandma Sadie home to Detroit to live with her, Sadie wore pants to be warm on the airplane. Now, at one hundred and one years old, Sadie has decided to continue to enjoy the comfort and warmth pants give her.

When asked if her husbands, father or brothers fought in World War I she got a playful look on her face. She said, “Only my cousin Eugene was in that War and he was glad to do it.” She confided, “He must have done something nasty, because he was on the chain gang and his only way out was to serve in the army!”

As we mused over the fact that Sadie was raised with outdoor plumbing, and read by oil lamps, we asked how she thought it was that she had outlived all but one younger sibling, buried two husbands, all of her children and two of her grandchildren? We learned the following: she has never smoked, never drank, and lives her life with a strong religious conviction and faith in “Jehovah.” Concerning her children she said, “If they’d listened to me, they’d be here today. Momma knows best!”

Now, at one hundred and one years of age, Sadie’s Bible-tapes give her pleasure, as does shopping, having Sunday dinner out in a restaurant, attending and participating in religious meetings, being visited by her family, and giving advice.

We can only guess how the advent of electricity, automobiles, telephones, airplanes, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, tin foil, saran wrap, disposable diapers, computers, cell phones, ball point pens, and the rest of today’s conveniences have impacted on her life, for she is of an era that did not have these luxuries we so take for granted.

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