Virginia Lee, Centenarian

We knew without a doubt that we wanted to invite the Lee family for a podcast interview, to honor and to celebrate their mother, Princeton’s own centenarian, Ms Virginia Lee. 100 years of living well and loving well. That is what Ms Virginia Lee has accomplished! She was born in Virginia, met her true love while working behind the counter at a soda shop. Princeton native Gresham Lee would come into the soda shop with the other shipyard workers and Virginia would always make sure to serve him herself, so that she could give him the extra scoops of ice cream in his milkshake and extra pieces of ham in his sandwich. It was love at first sight and she was going to let him know she was interested. They met on his birthday, April 17th, were engaged on her birthday May 12th, and were married on July 3rd, 1943. A whirlwind, forever romance! When they moved to Princeton, Virginia was all of 19 years old. She has called Princeton home ever since.

In our efforts to document the history and people of Princeton, we are putting our elders first in consideration for interviews. At age 100, Ms Virginia was top priority after our summer break. Her three daughters graciously agreed to the interview, and we desired to make it as comfortable as possible for Ms. Virginia.

We met the family one early August afternoon and gathered chairs together in the shade of their back porch where Ms Virginia was settled in her comfy, rolly, wheelchair that she maneuvered with the glee of a school girl. We set up the microphone with as little distraction as possible, then with only a simple discreet soundcheck to ensure Ms Virginia’s voice would be heard, we began. According to her family, she sometimes experiences memory block when asked to recall details at a moment’s notice. So, we opted to have more of a conversation than an interview for this podcast recording. This resulted in a different than usual format for podcast listening. There will be segments of conversation pieced together instead of a chronological interview format, and the sound quality of different speakers will be varied.

Our guest host Hope Dougherty took the lead in the conversation because Ms Virginia is an established friend of Hope’s family and was a familiar face. We had a few basic questions that had been answered previously by Virginia’s daughters and used those as a guideline to help steer the conversation, but we meandered to various topics along the way! Sometimes Ms Virginia got tongue-tied, then she would la-la-laugh at herself. Ms Virginia has a very joyful spirit, and even at her remarkable age, and occasional struggle to get her words out, her eyes sparkled and her happiness was evident. We had a very delightful visit.

We heard about diving into the deep end at age 85, picking cotton after school, backyard gardening and canning, how to catch a man (through his stomach), hand sewn clothes and pajamas, a family of firefighters, lemonade making, community service, if your nose is itching company is coming, dictionary reading date nights, love that lasts through 65 years of marriage and continues beyond the grave, but we did not hear the story about that cat flying over the wash house but the idea gave us a good laugh! There is a lot of comfort and friendliness in sitting on the porch visiting and chatting. Porch visits with neighbors are a small town privilege, and we should take advantage of it more often. When the weather is more friendly have a seat on your porch and wait for the neighbors to walk by and wave them a howdy and invite them to sit a spell and visit.

When the microphone was put away, Jenny, Ms Virginia’s daughter, told the interesting story of how they built their family’s home library when she was a young girl. Books, literacy and gaining knowledge, were considered important in their home. Her parents invested in subscriptions to reference and reading materials like World Book Encyclopedia, Childcraft, and Weekly Reader. Jenny told that receiving the newest Weekly Reader book was like Christmas every month. It was a glimpse into the past when books were not so easily acquired, and one example of how we are very blessed to now have a library in our small town.

It’s impossible for anyone to enjoy listening to this conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it for you! Listening is not the same as being present, but we do hope every listener of this episode enjoys the conversation and learns more about the history of Princeton and enjoys getting to know one more of Princeton’s own long time residents.