“Never Live to be 100", She says, and knows.
Mrs. Rachael Fayette Isn’t Entirely Serious Though as She Celebrates Turning of Century in Graham Home for Old Ladies
“Never Live to be a hundred” - you will be too tormented!” Mrs. Rachael Fayette spoke those words - and she knows - for today she celebrates her hundredth birthday, surrounded by friends in the Graham Home for Old Ladies, 321 Washington Ave. And, of course, and she didn’t mean that verdict to be taken literally, for she said it with a humorous inflection.
The problem of growing old gracefully was solved long ago by Mrs. Fayette. By the time of the Civil War she already had reached the age when women traditionally stop counting their birthdays.
Asked the usual question, “To what do you attribute your long life? Mrs. Fayette, a New Yorker for 74 years, promptly replied.
“An active life” She didn’t add an active sense of humor, but she should have.
Born in Cayuga County
Born in 1831 in Cayuga County, near Auburn. Mrs. Fayette was the daughter of parents who were natives of this State. Darius Stoddard and Abigail Altman. Their very names carry with them an atmosphere of the earlier days of American History.
While still young Rachael came with her parents to live in the city. The Mexican War she remembers from reading the papers of the day. When World War came, the year she entered Graham Home. Mrs. Fayette knitted and sewed for the Red Cross earning a special pin for her prowess.
But Mrs. Fayette is not of a temper to reminisce extensively. Too many events of her daily life interest her. A communicant of the Episcopal Church for 74 years, she is one of the favorite parishioners of Bishop Ernest M. Stires, who calls her a “good old soldier,”. Her response to this is:
“Old enough, but I don’t know how good.”
Three years ago Easter was her last visit to her own church, St Marks’s, on Adelphi St.
The coming of the machine age has left Mrs. Fayette aloof and even ironical.
“What did I do when automobiles first came into use? I kept out of their way.”
More devices for making money, she calls many modern mechanical inventions. “If I should live another 50 years, I could hardly believe it possible to see any further inventions, but I suppose there will be just as many more,” she said.
A rapid reader in spite of the loss of sight in one eye, Mrs. Fayette is fond of the daily paper.
Mrs. Fayette ended the interview thus:
“ Come back and see me again in my next hundredth birthday.”
|