Emily Anderson

(from an article in the Louisville Courier Journal, May 1941)

At 104, Granny Wins
Mother's Day Flowers

In her nineties she lived through
two operations. She's lively enough
still to get Skaggs Creek's prize
By HOWARD HARDAWAY

ON MOTHERS' DAY of last year at the Skaggs
Creek Church in Monroe County, Ky., announce-
ment was made (as in thousands of churches through-
out the land) that a flowering plant would be pre-
sented to the oldest mother present.
Mrs. Emily Anderson, a mere 103, walked down the
aisle to receive her prize. Now, a year later, as she
shows a visitor the plant still growing in its pot out
on the railing of the front porch, she remarks with a
chuckle, "That's what I got for being the best-looking
woman in the congregation."
And she's rather confident of winning the beauty
prize again this year.
The people at Skagg's Creek will take Granny's word
about her age, even though the old family Bible with
the 1837 entry is at the home of relatives in the Far
West. The old-age pension people, though, are
"from Missouri."No birth certificate, nobody is to make an af-
fidavit about remembering the approximate date of
her birth- no pension.
There is an idea though that since one of Mrs.
Anderson's sons has definitely established his age at
72, it may be reasonably deduced that she is over
85, and therefore eligible.
Not that she retired from work at 65-nor for thirty
years thereafter! At 93, after recovering from an opera-
tion for cancer, she got busy again at her hobby of
making patchwork quilts.. But she had to quit sewing
at 99, when her left hand was amputated. Doctors at
the Glasgow hospital marveled at her recovery from
two such operations, when she was so near the century
mark.
Mrs. Anderson still has a big time making a few
jokes at her own expense, using her tobacco regularly
and taking a little swig now and then of genuine Ken-
tucky moonshine.
Granny lived the first half of her life in a big farm-
house in Mudcamp Valley in Cumberland County.
Mudcamp Creek got its name from the fact that a
company of Union soldiers pitched their tents there
during the wet season and their camp was a loblolly
of mud during the entire stay.
All the mud, though, didn't prevent one young Union
soldier from getting far enough from camp to meet
and court the pretty Southern "enemy" to the extent
of presenting her with a gold locket. But when Emily's
father got wind of her friendship with the Yankee,
he took her hand, made her return the locket and for-
bade any further meetings. Emily never saw her "boy
in blue" again- eventually forgot him and married Mr.
Anderson.

Wonderful cook
The Andersons joined the trek to the West in a
covered wagon. She says, though, "The country was
wild; neighbors were far apart; we didn't make the
fortune we expected." Back to the hills of Cumber-
land County they came-still in their covered wagon.
Their big home up the scenic valley of Mudcamp
was almost like a hotel both in dimensions and activity.
"I used to board and cook for all the traveling sales-
men, preachers and school teachers that came to Mud-
camp," she says.
A near neighbor, Mrs. Tooley, who lives at the head
of Little meshack just over Hickory Ridge from Mud-
camp, testifies (and seems to smack her lips reminiscent-
ly as she speaks), "Granny Anderson always was a
wonderful cook."
For quite a spell, at the old home on Mudcamp Creek,
she cared from her grandson, Harry Orton. Now (turn
about is fair play) Harry insists that she live with him
in Tompkinsville.
For a while after moving to town, Granny was home-
sick for a sight of the hills. But she finds compensation
now in sitting out on the porch and watching the cars go
by-objects seldom seen up so near the head of the little
valley, where the only road (if it can be called a road)
runs mostly in the creek bed.
From the spryness that Granny shows as she walks
all through the house and around the place without
the help of a cane, one wouldn't be much surprised to
see her stir up a pretty good meal even now-with an
assistant, of course, to do whatever stirring might re-
quire two hands.
Just in case anyone might get the idea that Granny
is living in the past, it might be told that her chosen
interest during the month of April has to do with
what she would wear to Skaggs Creek Church for
Mothers' Day- when she expects to receive her prize
again for being "the best - looking woman in the
congregation.

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