By Staff
Senior Living
(This week The Atmore Advance spotlights Ether Kilcrease. She turned 92 this year.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Crenshaw County.
It was kind of in the country from Dozier.
I was born on April 7, 1914.
Q: Who were your parents?
A: My father was James Glass Veasey and my mother was Maggie Lee Smith.
They had 10 children. My mother passed away when I was 8 years old. That was in 1923.
My father remarried after my mother passed.
Her name was Nora Maloy and they had one daughter.
Q: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
A: I was the middle child out of 10. I had three older brothers, Eldridge, J.D. and Aubrey.
I had two older sisters – Susan and Ilab.
I had two younger brothers, Wintford and Tranum and a younger sister, Verna Lee.
The 10th child was never named because it died about a week after it was born.
Verna Lee and myself are the only ones still living.
She lives in Brewton.
Q: Where did you attend high school and college?
A: I didn't attend college and not a lot of high school either.
I went to school up until the eighth grade.
Then I had to stay home and help with the children and the farm.
I attended Camel's Chapel. It was named after a doctor there in town.
Q: How did you travel when you were younger?
A: I remember when I was real little my parents had a buggy pulled by a mule.
We had one that we called a double buggy because it had an extra seat in it for the children to sit on while my parents drove.
Other than that we walked everywhere else, like church and school.
My brother would even had to carry the bag of corn to the mill so they could grind it up to make cornmeal.
Back then the man that owned the mill had to use the creek water for power to make the mill run.
Q: Do you remember your first vehicle?
A: My parents had the buggy and mule.
I never had my own until after I got married. We bought a Chevy of Ford flat-bed truck in 1935.
Q: What jobs did you hold?
A: I was mostly a housewife. My husband was a farmer and he worked in the cotton mill every now and then.
After a few of our children got married and moved we really couldn't farm as much, but we did keep our garden.
We ran a filling station and that's what we called them back then in Perdido. We got out of that and moved to Opp.
We got acquainted with a man that owned a good many filling stations and he talked my husband into managing one in Eufaula.
I stayed at home with the two youngest children and he would come home two or three times a week.
I did most of the bookkeeping for the store.
We built our own station in Opp, but one of the storms blew the roof off in the mid '90s.
Q: Did you ever marry?
A: I married Jerry Monroe Kilcrease on November 3, 1934.
When I was about 18, the church was having a baptism during revival.
We were all walking during the revival and one of my girlfriends wanted to introduce me to her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend was Jerry.
He felt for me and I felt for him.
We dated off and on for about a year before we went steady.
Then we went steady for about a year before we married.
He was going to Florida and didn't want to leave me so we got married and I went with him.
He was 21 and I was 20.
Q: Do you have any children or grandchildren?
A: I have three sons, Leon, Jimmy and Tom.
Tom died in 2005.
I also have one daughter, LeNora Bell. She died in 2004.
I have 16 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren.
Q: Where do you attend church?
A: When I was raising our children we went to a church called Sweet Home Missionary Baptist.
Now, here at the nursing center, they have various churches that come every Sunday and preach for us.
Q. What keeps you busy these days?
A: Reading my Bible, doing puzzle books, different activities at the nursing home, watching my great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren play ball, and going places with my family.
Q. Have you traveled much?
A: Not growing up because we had to work on the farm.
After I was married, we would take a weeks vacation twice a year. My favorite place to go was to the mountains.
We also knew some people in Florida and we would go visit them. They had little get-together for July 4th.
I think they still have them for those of us that can still make it.
Q. What's your favorite television show?
A: Any religious show is my favorite.
Q: What advice do you give to people on staying healthy?
A: Stay active and eat right. That will make you the healthiest.
(If you would like to recommend a senior to be spotlighted please contact Stacie Cofield at 368-2123 or e-mail her at composing@atmoreadvance.com)