Linda Roddy, left, and her mother, Louise Nash, 100, celebrate Nash’s birthday by remembering her greatest moments.Fairview’s Louise Nash is not what you might picture when you think of a 100-year-old lady.
She still makes her own bed after awaking at 7 a.m., walks around with the help of a walker, helps in the kitchen and folds laundry. Having reached the milestone April 27, Nash credits her longevity to staying active, eating home-cooked meals and working hard.
“I wash dishes and do light housework,” said Nash, who lives with her daughter, Linda Roddy. “I’ve been blessed with good health.”
Nash’s birthday party held at Fairview Baptist Church brought in 148 birthday cards. She even received a birthday card from the Gatlinburg Post Office and one from NBC News anchor Willard Scott.
“It’s like a new world now,” said Nash, referring to the changes she’s seen since she was born in 1914. “I took a boat part of the way to school growing up and then caught a bus the rest of the way.”
Nash grew up in the Wheat community in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The daughter of a farmer and a housewife, she remembers helping raise cattle and tending to vegetable gardens on the farm. World War II was going on during her high school years. Part of the atomic bomb was made in a nearby Oak Ridge facility. She married Thomas Nash in 1938, who served in the United States Army. She took care of their children: Bobby, Tommy, Linda, Richard, Betty and Julia. She even handmade their clothes.
After her husband passed away in 1973, Nash had to teach herself how to drive a car. At age 57 she obtained her driver’s license. She began sitting with people in their home or at the hospital and also began cooking meals for a local lawyer and his wife.
Nash likes to show people a blue ribbon that she won at the Roane County Fair for bread making in 1993.
After moving from Rockwood, Tenn., to the local Fairview community at age 96, Nash continues to do chores.
“I fold clothes and towels,” she said. “I can iron some, but I don’t like to.”
A few years ago, Roddy had about 125 ears of corn to put in the freezer. Before she knew it, Nash had shucked all 125 ears of corn and left them on the table for her to put in the freezer. Roddy was shocked that at age 97 her mother could still work that hard.
“I lived to be 100 by waking up every morning and going to work,” said Nash, adding that she went to church every time the door was open.
She is presently reading “Sitting by my Laughing Fire,” by Ruth Bell Graham, Dr. Billy Graham’s wife.