JUNE 1946
COUNTY LADY TO REACH CENTURY OF
JOYFUL LIVING ON HUNDREDTH
BIRTHDAY JULY FIRST
by Helen Danglade

Switzerland County, already fortunate to h ave one centurion within its borders in the person of Mrs Emma Powell, 101 years old, will be so honored again soon.

On Monday, July 1st, Mrs Olive Poston will celebrate her one hundredth birthday at the house of her son, William E Poston and his wife, with whom she lives in Vevey.

Open house will be held from two to four o'clock, and friends and relatives are invited to call. Although her eyesight and her hearing are impaired, Mrs Poston is remarkable for her years. Her mind is unusually clear and her sense of humor is so keen that she genuinely enjoys a joke-- particularly one upon herself.

She keeps in touch with the outside world through her radio and although she cannot see what miracles her hands are performing, she braids and sews rag rugs. Her daughter-in-law keeps needles threaded and at hand and during the past two years she has completed fourteen of these rugs.

She finds great Solace in her Bible and every day the daughter-in-law reads from it to Mrs Poston. The books of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John she knows by heart and she recites them aloud with only a word of prompting from the daughter-in-law. These, says Mrs Poston, are the Bible verses which she learned in Sunday School when prizes were given for memorizing them. The poems of her school days are also engraved upon her mind and she is always ready with an appropriate one for any occasion.

Music is also very dear to her heart and while she does not sing often, she recites the words of many songs learned in her youth. She enjoys the music of the radio and occasionally she delights her family by joining in a song in a clear true alto voice.

This voice received one term of professional training under the tutelage of Professor Shehane, a traveling singing master who visited the community and gave lessons at the Pleasant Grove Church. At the second term, he contracted pneumonia and died.

Mrs Poston was privileged to attend the singing school through the cooperation and her young husband. No matter how tired he was when the night of the lesson fell, he hitched up the horse and drove her to the church where he minded the baby while she sang--a thing he loved to hear her do.

In addition to learning alto parts, she also became familiar with the bass and in later years, was able to teach her son, Sanford, to carry that part. Whenever a quartet was needed for a neighborhood affair, the mother and son always formed a portion of it.

The subject of this sketch was born 1/2 mile from Pleasant Grove church in Pleasant Township. Her parents were Nelson and Ann Hotchkiss Harris.

When she wan nine years old, she joined the church nearby, subsequently transferring her membership to Huston Chapel on Grants Creek, then to Allensville, and later to Aberdeen where she remained. On September 12, 1861, when she was but fifteen years old, she married William Poston, who was twenty-one years old. With the exception of eight years in Rising Sun where they lived with Mrs Poston's brother, Marten Harris, following the death of his wife, all of their married life was spent on farms in Switzerland County. Mr Poston passed away in Rising Sun on August 17, 1897 and is interred there.

Seven children were born to the couple: Emma, Sanford, Henry, Nettie, Herbert, Edda, and William. Only two survive: Mrs Nettie Tucker of Cincinnati, and the son with whom she makes her home. Mrs Poston lived in established a typical pioneer home. It was a privilege of this writer to visit the home frequently as a child and we still vividly remember the taste of cheese which Mrs Poston continued to make until not too many years ago.

As a member of the Harris family, which numbered so many celebrated cooks, that they published their own cook book, Mrs Poston learned the secret of cheese making from her mother. She became so proficient at it that she bested the clan at its own and captured all the blue ribbons when she exhibited her product at the county fairs.

These cheeses were no mere smear-case affair. They were made only in the summer time and a sufficient number were stored for winter use. They were pressed in peck and a half bushel treasures and weighed from twelve to fifteen pounds each. It took three weeks for them to ripen. Each cheese had to be turned every day at that time and each board had to be cleaned every day. This writer is not the only person who remembers those delicious fruits of her labor with nostalgic appreciation due them. Some months ago, Dr Emerson North, eminent psychiatrist of Cincinnati, and native of Posey Township, wrote to Mrs Poston and asked for her recipes and for the old cheese presses. The latter had been destroyed, but Mrs Poston was able to tell exactly how she made her famous product. As children, the North boys and the Poston boys had been intimate friends and Dr North often been on the receiving end of a huge chunk of that golden goodness.

Like most strong characters, there is usually some little human weakness present which is respected by their families. Mrs Poston's is fear of the dark, and in the hundred years of her existence, she has never spent a night alone.

Not long ago she confided to her daughter-in-law that she felt she must be getting old. Asked why, she replied, "Well I never did sleep well, and now every night I sleep just like a baby."