Missouri woman going strong after 108 years

LEBANON, Mo. -- In a cozy living room at Neighborhood Senior Residential Home, Ruby Gregory and Geneva Rayl faced each other, Rayl's silver hair reflected in Gregory's oversize glasses.

Gregory slowly leaned forward in her chair until she was close enough to see Rayl smiling at her.

"Ready, Ruby?" Rayl asked as she steadied herself on her walker. When she was balanced, she found Gregory's arthritic hands and held them gently.

"We were sailing along on Moonlight Bay," Rayl sang, beginning a Doris Day favorite. "Come on, Ruby. Sing with me."

Gregory's aged voice chimed in on the next lines: "We could hear the voices ringing. They seemed to say ... "

The tune came as naturally as breathing to the 108-year-old.

"I never dreamed I'd live this long. I'm as old as Methuselah," she joked, referring to the oldest man mentioned in the Bible, who lived to be 969.

Gregory, born Feb. 13, 1898, grew up on a farm near Mount Vernon, Ill., with seven siblings.

"We had a nice home with fruit trees, a garden, chickens, ducks and everything that went with it," she said. "Three hundred acres. I used to have to help milk cows before I went to school in the morning."

Definitely not her favorite job, she said. "Too cold."

Later, working on the fifth floor of the Famous-Barr store in St. Louis was better.

"I liked the escalators," she said, chuckling.

Horse-and-buggy days

In 1916, during what Gregory calls the "horse-and-buggy days," the then-18-year-old met and married Oscar Gregory, who taught school for $25 a month.

"My husband appeared in a buggy with two horses and took me to Wayne City, Ill. Then we took a train to Mount Vernon and got married in the courthouse.

"Then we took a train back to Wayne City, where we left our rig. There was a dishpan full of candy from the shivaree," a word derived from the French word meaning a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds.

"They shot off their guns and beat on washtubs," Gregory said.

Soon after their marriage, the couple moved to St. Louis, then to St. Petersburg, Fla., where they lived together for 20 years until her husband's death in 1962.

Gregory lived alone until she was 98, when she came to Lebanon to live in a small cottage near her son, Gene. She moved to Neighborhood Senior Residential Home three years ago.

"It was the best alternative," said her son, 86. With congestive heart failure, "she needed 24-hour care."

Ann Owens, a Pulaski County native, opened the home on May 1, 1995, shortly after becoming legal guardian of her elderly aunt.

"I figured if I have to stay home with one senior, I might as well get her some friends," she said.

The licensed practical nurse started renovating her two-bedroom house in Lebanon, built in 1935, adding approximately 2,300 square feet and eight bedrooms. Soon, the home was filled to capacity with 10 seniors.

Gregory has quickly become the talk of the town.

"People that don't know us will come by and ask, 'Is this where the 108-year-old lady lives?'" Owens said. "They'll ask to see her, and I'll tell them to go in the living room and find her. But they can't pick her out," because she doesn't look her age.

Owens said each resident has a distinct personality, and most are active and self-sufficient. To live in the home, seniors have to be able to transfer themselves from their bed to a chair without help and find a path of safety on their own, in case of a fire, for example.

"To be that old and be as smart and remember everything and get around like she does, she's got more ambition than I've got," Rayl, 80, said of her singing buddy.

Gregory said she remembers "the big headlines in the paper" when Titanic sank and how surprised she was when Charles Lindberg became the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected for the first time when she was 35, was her favorite president.

She loves blackberry cobbler, bluegrass music and watching reruns of the "Lawrence Welk Show." She says the best blessing at mealtime.

"It's beautiful to hear," Owens said. If she weren't around, "there would be a terrible void here."

"She is a pretty good person," said Billie Page, 86. "I never hear her saying anything. She seems to be happy with whatever, just the run of life."

Gregory, who's optimistic she has several years ahead of her, said that's the age-old secret to living a long life.

"Take everything as it comes. Take life easy."