By Betty Lawrence
blawrence@dailystandard.com ROCKFORD -- At 105 years old, Alma Stephenson Now has earned the distinction of being the oldest person in Mercer County.
Now is celebrating the landmark birthday today with family and friends at Maplewood of Shane's Village, Rockford.
If figures were available, she likely would be in the running for the oldest person in Ohio, says a spokesperson with the Ohio Department of Aging.
During an interview last week at the rural Rockford nursing home, four of Now's six children, Dick, Charles, Marlin and Larry Stephenson and their spouses, gathered around the grand matriarch to talk about the woman they are proud to call mom.
"It couldn't have been easy for Mom, raising six of us children. But we didn't even know there was a depression (after World War II) until we read about it. We lived on a farm and Mom canned a lot. We always had plenty to eat," said Dr. Marlin Stephenson, a retired chiropractor who lives in Wapakoneta with his wife, Laura. Now was born Alma Elizabeth Bollenbacher in 1899 on an Erastus-Durbin Road farm. She married Robert Stephenson in 1923 at the home of her parents, Jacob and Effie Bollenbacher, of rural Rockford. Her sister, Pearl Woods, also was married in a double wedding ceremony.
After the wedding, the couple moved to Detroit to work for the Ford Motor Company making Model T's. Dick and Charles Stephenson were born in Detroit.
But after four years, the couple and their two young sons moved back to Mercer County to farm. The couple was blessed with four more children, Marlin, their only daughter Virginia, and twins Larry and Jerry.
"If someone had twins back then, Sears and Roebuck offered two of everything when you ordered from them," Larry Stephenson recalled.
Times were lean in the 1930s, Charles Stephenson said, remembering when his parents had the telephone taken out because the $1 monthly fee was just too expensive. The Chattanooga farmer and his wife, Annalee, are retired.
Dick Stephenson and his wife, Gene, also are retired Chattanooga farmers. He recalled the time when there were two blue stars in the window of his mother's farmhouse.
Families with people serving in the military would place a blue star in a window for each person serving.
"I was in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War, and Charlie was with the Merchant Marine during World War II," Dick Stephenson said. "Mother was a very Christian person who prayed a lot, and it helped her get through what I know had to be a rough time for her. We both came back home, safe and sound."
The four Stephenson men sitting around their mother last week all agreed that a deep and constant faith is what has kept the family ties close all these years.
"I can't remember a time when Daddy or Mom raised their voice to us when we were growing up, or to each other," recalled Larry Stephenson, who now lives on the family farm with his wife, Joella.
"I remember one time when my twin brother Jerry and I were fighting and Mom just got down on her knees and started praying. That was all it took. We stopped right then and there. She's the most spiritual lady I know," he said.
Now and most of her children are members of the Chattanooga United Methodist church, where she made the communion bread.
"Mom made the best sugar cookies," Charles Stephenson said, adding that he can still smell his mother's homemade bread.
The Stephenson children also remember the year 1941, when the family home burnt to the ground. Larry and Jerry were only 1-year-old. Friends and neighbors took them in until they could get on their feet again, Dick Stephenson said.
In 1958, at the young age of 58, their father died in a traffic accident on a snowy Mercer County road.
Their mother remarried in 1961, to Orris Now, and then had two step-children, Vaughn Now and the Rev. Morris Now. The couple was married 19 years before Orris' death.
Now's extended family includes 21 grandchildren, 35 great-granchildren, nine great-great-grandchildren and numerous step-grand, great-grand and great-great grandchildren.
Her daughter, Virginia Clegg of Durham, N.C., and son, Jerry Stephenson, of Denver, Colo., plan to visit their mother at the end of the month, marking the first time in many years the entire family will be together.
"She's amazing," Charles Stephenson said of his mother. "She doesn't take any medicine and she's not in any pain. She can't speak for herself, but I know she knew we were here today." |
