Anne Louise Anderson celebrated her 97th birthday twice. “That is what the family wanted so I tried to go along with them,” laughed Anderson. Anderson is the oldest living member of Northeast Chapel Free Will Baptist Church that she joined when she was 16. Anderson said she is active, in good health and does not take any medications. (Steve Herring|mountolivetribune.com)
Anne Louise Anderson and her son Arthur Anderson sit on her front porch swing after celebrating her 97th birthday Monday, July 31. (Steve Herring|mountolivetribune.com)
Anne Louise Anderson blows out the candles on her birthday cake. The cake was coconut, one of her two favorite kinds of cake. The other is pineapple. (Steve Herring|mountolivetribune.com)
Anne Louise Anderson’s family wanted to make her 97th birthday special so they celebrated it twice.
“That is what the family wanted so I tried to go along with them,” laughed Anderson, whose hearty laugh, quick wit and appearance belay her 97 years.
The first was Sunday, July 30, at Western Sizzlin’ in Dunn where Anderson was greeted and congratulated by other diners. The second was on Monday, July 31, her actual birthday, at her Mount Olive home.
That includes two days of cake, she added.
For her actual birthday on Monday she had one of her favorites, a coconut cake.
“That and pineapple,” Anderson added.
People who came in to wish her happy birthday left with slices of cake.
Anderson is originally from Turkey in Sampson County. Her family moved to Mount Olive when she was a child following the death of her father.
Her mother’s parents lived here and her mother worked at the Mt. Olive Pickle Co.
“And we have been here ever since,” Anderson said.
Anderson has two children, Arthur Anderson, and his wife Delphine, with whom she makes her home and a daughter, Earthel Anderson, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren and Betty, her pet Chihuahua.
Anderson is in good health.
“I am not on any medication,” she said.
Asked about the her secret to her long and healthy life, Anderson said, “Living for the Lord, give Him my life and don’t play with Him and endure to the end with Jesus — no slipping and no sliding. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
“You have got to be real with Him. You can’t play with Him so when He comes and I leave from here and if I play with Him and he comes and takes me in, He is going to say ‘Depart from me because I know you not.’ I am living to see Him and He see me. Don’t get nervous and don’t get scared.”
Anderson is the oldest living member of Northeast Chapel Free Will Baptist Church where she joined when she was 16.
She is a mother of the church, has sung in the choir, has been an usher and active in other aspects of the church.
Anderson has worked on the farm, as a housekeeper and as a homemaker.
“I have done some of all of it,” she said.
She recalls how she could carry two rows of cotton.
“I could pick over 100 pounds of cotton,” she said. “I mean if the cotton is good. If it is scattered and there are places between the plants it will take you a long time.
“But I’d get out there in that cotton field and get between two rows. I am carrying two cotton rows. I am going to pick up one going and then turn around and catch the other one up. That is the way I used to do.”
Anderson said she has seen a lot over her 97 years, especially all of the cars on the roads and in parking lots today.
“There are too many of them,” she laughed. “I can’t keep up with all of that stuff. I just say that God has been good to me.
“I love to get out and go to church. I love to go to prayer meeting, Bible study. I just love to be in the service of the Lord.”
Anderson still enjoys cooking and just recently prepared homemade chicken pastry.
“I have been making my chicken pastry since I was a teenager,” she said. “I just like to cook — fish, cabbage, stew beef, neck bones. Yeah, neck bones, that’s my favorite. That is some good eating there — neck bones.
“I have got in the kitchen, cooked a pan of biscuits and fried me some meat. Get me a slice of that old fatback, I didn’t say no ham either, and get me a biscuit — I got something good I tell you.”
Anderson stays busy and has enrolled in a sewing class at the Wayne County Senior Center in Goldsboro. She knows how to sew with a needle, but not with a sewing machine.
She will be doing arts and crafts there as well.
Anderson has accomplished much over her 97 years, said her son, but she has one more wish — one that he working to make a reality.
She wants to walk on her land one final time, he said.
Arthur Anderson is working to clear what had been an overgrown area behind their home including the small ditch that borders it.
During her childhood, three houses stood on that land including one that she lived in. She wants to walk though that land of childhood memories once again, he said.
