CRESTVIEW — Saturday, five generations of Lucille Winsett’s family will gather at The Wild Olive to celebrate her 100th birthday.
She just hopes the weather cooperates for the occasion.
“I hope we don’t have rain like Monday’s for my party,” she said, referring to several inches of water that dumped on Crestview. “So many people, they don’t know how to drive when it rains.”
With guests arriving from as far away as Utah, San Francisco and Costa Rica, Winsett — who actually turns 100 on Oct. 6 — wants everything to go smoothly.
“They’re coming from near and far,” Winsett said. “I tell ya, everybody doesn’t have a 100th birthday.”
For the Canton, Ohio, native — “I’m a Buckeye!” she said proudly — the return of far-flung relations, and the absence of several, are testimony to her two guiding principles: take care of your family and take care of yourself.
“A loving family, and caring for your children when they’re young and growing up, is what you need,” she said. “We have no quarrels with one another, and that’s what counts as a family.”
HEALTHY LIVING
Coupled with fostering a loving family environment is avoiding unhealthy habits, Winsett said.
“Good living is what counts in the long run,” she said. “Plain old good living: eating right and doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and not taking stuff you’re not supposed to be taking. I don’t drink or smoke.”
Winsett has seen firsthand the results of tobacco addiction, having lost her second husband, Floyd T., in 2003 after 67 years of marriage to smoking-related disease, as well as their son, Robert.
“Smoking got to them and they lost their lives,” she said sadly.
But her three remaining children — Floyd Winsett Jr., and Mary Jane and Andrew Selogy — are as devoted to their mother as she is to them. Mary Jane, who lives in the Crestview area, visits Winsett’s house several times a week to check in on her.
“They say, ‘You took care of us all those years and now it’s our turn,’” Winsett said.
“She’s been by herself ever since Dad died,” Floyd Winsett Jr. said. “She takes care of herself and prefers that.”
Winsett isn’t entirely alone. Her 16-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Prissy, follows her around the house and settles comfortably on a blanket near Winsett’s feet when she sits down.
WAITRESS WORK
Floyd Jr., who lives in Costa Rica, said he and his siblings find comfort in their mother’s independence and relatively good health. She’s always triumphed over adversity, he said.
“Her first husband was killed when she was just 22, leaving her with three children and no financial support,” he said.
“So I did waitress work,” Lucille Winsett said. “Back in them days, it took everything you had to raise a family. That was my first job. I got $8 a week. $8 won’t buy nothing nowadays.”
She’s had other memorable experiences as well, Floyd Jr. said.
“In the early 1950s she was struck by lightning,” he said. “She was 89 when she flew by herself to visit us in Spain, and she came to Costa Rica when she was 92 to celebrate our housewarming.
“She danced with the band leader — ‘If only I was a little younger,’" he recalled her saying.
Winsett said she’s not as spry as she was when cutting the rug with a Costa Rican bandleader, having had knee surgery a couple years ago and requiring a walker to get around her house.
But she enjoys remaining independent, having callers and reminiscing over a life rich in friends and family.
“It’s nice to be able to remember things and share them,” she said. “I pay my own bills and take care of my checkbook and everything.”
POLITICS AND HEALTH
Floyd Jr. said his mother avidly follows local and world events.
“She reads (the) newspaper cover to cover every day,” he said, “and she’s written lots of letters to the editor.
"She said over the phone to me a couple of weeks ago, ‘If that Donald Trump becomes president, I am leaving the country!’”
As for changes she’s observed over the last century, the biggest, she said, is an increasingly unhealthy lifestyle.
“The drug use and the drinking and smoking is worse than it used to be,” Winsett said. “It’s gotten too bad and out of hand. People don’t do what they should do, and they don’t take care of themselves and their family.
“Family is what counts. When you don’t have family sticking together, they can’t get through the hard times.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview woman offers life advice as she approaches 100