10. Mrs.Emmaline (Emily) Hunt - 100th Birthday 1951, Winchester, Huntsville

By Paul Deming 1951


   "A century of living, of sharing and giving" is the motto of Mrs. Emmaline (Emmy) Hunt who celebrates her onconsiderably e-hundredth birthday anniversary Friday August 31, 1951 at her home in Winchester to become Randolph County's only living Centenarian.
  Still active for a person her age, Mrs. Hunt demonstrates in the photo that she can still "thread a needle" and sews daily, her favorite pastime.
  How does she feel at age 100? Not more than 70 at the most," answers the smiling and pleasant Mrs. Hunt. When querried as to how long she expects to live, she will say "Just as long  as the good Lord will let me." Asked about her interest in sewing she replied, "Mercy-I wish you knew of all the quilts, cloths and things I've made. One of my best quilts I made when I was 95-years-old. I still sew and love doing it.
  Her reaction to the modern world- "I don't enjoy times now in comparison to the way they were when I was a girl. I think times have definitely become worse."
  And, reflecting her simple Hoosier homespun philosophy, she looks back over the last hundred years of her life and recalls the happiest single day of her century as- "When my husband and I moved to Winchester and established our first real home, then I knew we would always be secure and have a place of our own."

  Her only advice to aspiring centenarians, Mrs. Hunt says. is clean and simple living. As to her secret of longevity, she explains it as the "confidence and joy of living." She says she tries to lead a temperate life and is particularly careful about eating.
  She says she never drinks coffee and never eats meat. Milk and water are her sole liquids for lunch and dinner, while for breakfast she drinks heated water with a little sugar and cream added. She sleeps approximately nine hours a day, retiring at about nine o'clock in the evening and rising at six o'clock in the morning. Occasionaly she may take a short nap in the afternoon.
  She immensely enjoys seeing and talking with friends, and is looking forward to many visitors through the day Friday. For those who will visit her then, her son and daughter ask that they please refrain from shaking hands with Mrs. Hunt as many people often do. They explained that so much hand shaking in the past has proved to bruise the elderly lady's hands severley.
  Mrs. Hunt is the only living member of a family of ten children and is a descendant of one of Randolph County's oldest pioneer families. She was born on August 31, 1851 on a farm near Huntsville and her mother, Harriet Ann (Cropper) Botkin, came to Randolph County from Henry County, Kentucky at the age of 11.
  Her brothers and sisters were Bealie, Edward, Malinda Jane, Matilda Ellen, Mary Eliza, Rebecca, Horace, Silas and Stacy Lincoln. Her father died in 1891 at the age of 71 years and her mother died in 1905 when she was 89-years-old.
  Emily was married to Addison Hunt, also a pioneer of Randolph County, on September 8, 1879 in a ceremony read by Harvey Patty, justice of the peace in Winchester. The Hunt's moved to Winchester in 1902. Mr. Hunt died in 1933.
  Descendants of the new centenarian now living are a son, Basil C. Hunt of Dayton, Ohio: a daughter Sadie DuBois of 427 Thompson street, Winchester, with whom Mrs. Hunt lives; two granddaughters, Harriet Holladay of Muncie and Jean Fast of Fort Wayne; three grandsons, Wayne F. Hunt, William A. Hunt and Robert L. Puckett: four great grandsons Jackie Holladay and Ronnie Holladay, Marshall A. Hunt and Buttchie Cook; and five great granddaughters, Wanda Lou Holladay, Caroline Sue and Sandra Kay Fast, Diane Puckett and Melonia Ann Hunt.