Do you remember where you were in 1922? It was a big year. The roaring 20s were in full swing, Agatha Christie published “The Great Adversary”, the first insulin shot was given, Gandhi was arrested by the British government, and the first midair collision of two commercial airliners happened.
Of course, most of us can’t remember that year because we weren’t around back then. But at least one resident of DeKalb County was: Elva Guinn Blackwell of Fyffe. She was born 100 years ago on September 28, 1922, in Skyline and moved to Fyffe as a young woman in 1948. That means she was there almost a decade before the post office.
She has lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and many other significant national events. In Fyffe alone, she has lived through the corporation of the town, the hosiery mill industry, five state football championships, one state basketball championship, nine state cheerleading championships, and two apparently lost UFOs.
An avid quilter, Elva made beautiful quilts for everyone and even taught the next two generations of her female family members how to quilt. Her nieces, nephews, and grandkids loved spending the night even though her house stayed very cold in the winter. They remember fondly crawling out from under the electric blankets and making a mad dash for the bathroom, where the only heater was.
It was worth it to them because the payoff came in the morning in the form of a homemade breakfast. Elva came up in a harder time, before all the technological wonders we have now, and still made her own biscuits, gravy, and runny eggs just like a true Southerner should. And her milk came straight from the cow.
Don’t think for a second that she was just a homemaker working hard around the house. From 1965 until 1987, she worked at Grenoble in Fyffe, manufacturing shirts and gloves. She’s also still an active member of Free Hill Baptist Church in Fyffe and has been since she moved there. If the doors are open, she’s there.
There’s so much emphasis put on the founding fathers of our country and the leaders of industry, but when I think of America, the America I grew up in when a man’s word was his bond, I think of people like Elva Guinn Blackwell. When I picture her sitting around snapping string beans on the porch, teaching her kids and grandkids how to guilt, milking her cow, or kneading dough for biscuits, there is nothing more Americana in my book.
Elva never says bye because “Goodbye is forever.” So, I’ll just say Happy 100th Birthday. Have the grandest day in a century. God bless you.