The Sun
New York, New York
4 February 1895 (page 5, column 2)
DEAD AT THE AGE OF 113 YEARS.
Abby Smith, Who for 100 Years "Worked Around," Passes Away.
NORWICH, Conn. Feb. 3. -- Abby Smith, who without doubt was the oldest person in the Nutmeg State, is dead at the home of Justice Charles A. Johnson of Bozrah, eight miles northwest of Norwich, aged 113 years. Her death was due to debility. It is not known that she had ever been ill until three years ago, and then her indisposition was caused rather by a natural decline than any actual disease. For more than 100 years she had worked in country homesteads, a faithful house hand, who tolled as hard as ever a woman could. It was not until she was 110 years old that she ceased to be able to support herself and do all her household duties and chores. She was a sprightly, clean-built, cheery-faced, helpful old lady, who by turns trotted into one house and then another among "the neighbors, "Jest ter help 'em on with the work," and her coming there was as good as a sunbeam twinkling in at the window after dull and cheerless weather. She never dropped in upon a country homestead that she was not welcome there and the only trouble with her visitations, said all "the neighbors," was that they were too brief and "far between." In her extreme old age she was a bowed, withered, and dried-up little person, her visage checkered with a thousand tiny wrinkles, but her eyes were as bright, shrewd, and kindly, and her sunny smile was the reflection of a temper that was never ruffled. In sickness or health her hand was always helpful and she could mind the "crossest" baby with a mollifying effect that sometimes seemed magical. After Abby had become disabled from doing active work she went to live with Peace Justice Johnson's family, who treated her with the utmost kindness, so that her closing years were those of pleasantness and peace.
"Well, the old lady is gone!" said more than one rugged ruralist regretfully, immediately after her death' "and a better woman never lived," they all added. Said Justice Johnson:
"A more honorable example of vigorous and sturdy womanhood was seldom seen. Her freshness of mind and vitality remained with her in an astonishing degree. Perhaps her most remarkable feature was her green and retentive memory, and she was a cyclopedia of all the every-day news of Bozrah for an age."
Furthermore, she was one of the last survivors of a race of household hands peculiar to New England, who "jest worked 'round for a livin'," like the Yankee "hired man," and toiled early and late with unexampled fidelity and loyalty, for a very small pecuniary compensation. Yet they were as independent and proud as you please, and it wouldn't do at all to proffer to them the chilly and humiliating hand of charity. In a certain degree, perhaps, a corresponding class of home helpers was met with before the war in faithful old plantation hands in Virginia and Kentucky. In respect of old Abby Smith's exact age there was always somewhat of doubt on the part of her neighbors and the general opinion was that she was a trifle older -- perhaps a year or so -- than she believed herself to be.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1895-02-04/ed-1/seq-5/
Contributor lmills (48614498) adds this: A further biography of Mrs. Abby (Rhodes) Smith can be found in this text on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/yenamesagesofall00nash/page/6/mode/2up
New York, New York
4 February 1895 (page 5, column 2)
DEAD AT THE AGE OF 113 YEARS.
Abby Smith, Who for 100 Years "Worked Around," Passes Away.
NORWICH, Conn. Feb. 3. -- Abby Smith, who without doubt was the oldest person in the Nutmeg State, is dead at the home of Justice Charles A. Johnson of Bozrah, eight miles northwest of Norwich, aged 113 years. Her death was due to debility. It is not known that she had ever been ill until three years ago, and then her indisposition was caused rather by a natural decline than any actual disease. For more than 100 years she had worked in country homesteads, a faithful house hand, who tolled as hard as ever a woman could. It was not until she was 110 years old that she ceased to be able to support herself and do all her household duties and chores. She was a sprightly, clean-built, cheery-faced, helpful old lady, who by turns trotted into one house and then another among "the neighbors, "Jest ter help 'em on with the work," and her coming there was as good as a sunbeam twinkling in at the window after dull and cheerless weather. She never dropped in upon a country homestead that she was not welcome there and the only trouble with her visitations, said all "the neighbors," was that they were too brief and "far between." In her extreme old age she was a bowed, withered, and dried-up little person, her visage checkered with a thousand tiny wrinkles, but her eyes were as bright, shrewd, and kindly, and her sunny smile was the reflection of a temper that was never ruffled. In sickness or health her hand was always helpful and she could mind the "crossest" baby with a mollifying effect that sometimes seemed magical. After Abby had become disabled from doing active work she went to live with Peace Justice Johnson's family, who treated her with the utmost kindness, so that her closing years were those of pleasantness and peace.
"Well, the old lady is gone!" said more than one rugged ruralist regretfully, immediately after her death' "and a better woman never lived," they all added. Said Justice Johnson:
"A more honorable example of vigorous and sturdy womanhood was seldom seen. Her freshness of mind and vitality remained with her in an astonishing degree. Perhaps her most remarkable feature was her green and retentive memory, and she was a cyclopedia of all the every-day news of Bozrah for an age."
Furthermore, she was one of the last survivors of a race of household hands peculiar to New England, who "jest worked 'round for a livin'," like the Yankee "hired man," and toiled early and late with unexampled fidelity and loyalty, for a very small pecuniary compensation. Yet they were as independent and proud as you please, and it wouldn't do at all to proffer to them the chilly and humiliating hand of charity. In a certain degree, perhaps, a corresponding class of home helpers was met with before the war in faithful old plantation hands in Virginia and Kentucky. In respect of old Abby Smith's exact age there was always somewhat of doubt on the part of her neighbors and the general opinion was that she was a trifle older -- perhaps a year or so -- than she believed herself to be.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1895-02-04/ed-1/seq-5/
Contributor lmills (48614498) adds this: A further biography of Mrs. Abby (Rhodes) Smith can be found in this text on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/yenamesagesofall00nash/page/6/mode/2up
The Sun
New York, New York
4 February 1895 (page 5, column 2)
DEAD AT THE AGE OF 113 YEARS.
Abby Smith, Who for 100 Years "Worked Around," Passes Away.
NORWICH, Conn. Feb. 3. -- Abby Smith, who without doubt was the oldest person in the Nutmeg State, is dead at the home of Justice Charles A. Johnson of Bozrah, eight miles northwest of Norwich, aged 113 years. Her death was due to debility. It is not known that she had ever been ill until three years ago, and then her indisposition was caused rather by a natural decline than any actual disease. For more than 100 years she had worked in country homesteads, a faithful house hand, who tolled as hard as ever a woman could. It was not until she was 110 years old that she ceased to be able to support herself and do all her household duties and chores. She was a sprightly, clean-built, cheery-faced, helpful old lady, who by turns trotted into one house and then another among "the neighbors, "Jest ter help 'em on with the work," and her coming there was as good as a sunbeam twinkling in at the window after dull and cheerless weather. She never dropped in upon a country homestead that she was not welcome there and the only trouble with her visitations, said all "the neighbors," was that they were too brief and "far between." In her extreme old age she was a bowed, withered, and dried-up little person, her visage checkered with a thousand tiny wrinkles, but her eyes were as bright, shrewd, and kindly, and her sunny smile was the reflection of a temper that was never ruffled. In sickness or health her hand was always helpful and she could mind the "crossest" baby with a mollifying effect that sometimes seemed magical. After Abby had become disabled from doing active work she went to live with Peace Justice Johnson's family, who treated her with the utmost kindness, so that her closing years were those of pleasantness and peace.
"Well, the old lady is gone!" said more than one rugged ruralist regretfully, immediately after her death' "and a better woman never lived," they all added. Said Justice Johnson:
"A more honorable example of vigorous and sturdy womanhood was seldom seen. Her freshness of mind and vitality remained with her in an astonishing degree. Perhaps her most remarkable feature was her green and retentive memory, and she was a cyclopedia of all the every-day news of Bozrah for an age."
Furthermore, she was one of the last survivors of a race of household hands peculiar to New England, who "jest worked 'round for a livin'," like the Yankee "hired man," and toiled early and late with unexampled fidelity and loyalty, for a very small pecuniary compensation. Yet they were as independent and proud as you please, and it wouldn't do at all to proffer to them the chilly and humiliating hand of charity. In a certain degree, perhaps, a corresponding class of home helpers was met with before the war in faithful old plantation hands in Virginia and Kentucky. In respect of old Abby Smith's exact age there was always somewhat of doubt on the part of her neighbors and the general opinion was that she was a trifle older -- perhaps a year or so -- than she believed herself to be.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1895-02-04/ed-1/seq-5/
Contributor lmills (48614498) adds this: A further biography of Mrs. Abby (Rhodes) Smith can be found in this text on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/yenamesagesofall00nash/page/6/mode/2up
New York, New York
4 February 1895 (page 5, column 2)
DEAD AT THE AGE OF 113 YEARS.
Abby Smith, Who for 100 Years "Worked Around," Passes Away.
NORWICH, Conn. Feb. 3. -- Abby Smith, who without doubt was the oldest person in the Nutmeg State, is dead at the home of Justice Charles A. Johnson of Bozrah, eight miles northwest of Norwich, aged 113 years. Her death was due to debility. It is not known that she had ever been ill until three years ago, and then her indisposition was caused rather by a natural decline than any actual disease. For more than 100 years she had worked in country homesteads, a faithful house hand, who tolled as hard as ever a woman could. It was not until she was 110 years old that she ceased to be able to support herself and do all her household duties and chores. She was a sprightly, clean-built, cheery-faced, helpful old lady, who by turns trotted into one house and then another among "the neighbors, "Jest ter help 'em on with the work," and her coming there was as good as a sunbeam twinkling in at the window after dull and cheerless weather. She never dropped in upon a country homestead that she was not welcome there and the only trouble with her visitations, said all "the neighbors," was that they were too brief and "far between." In her extreme old age she was a bowed, withered, and dried-up little person, her visage checkered with a thousand tiny wrinkles, but her eyes were as bright, shrewd, and kindly, and her sunny smile was the reflection of a temper that was never ruffled. In sickness or health her hand was always helpful and she could mind the "crossest" baby with a mollifying effect that sometimes seemed magical. After Abby had become disabled from doing active work she went to live with Peace Justice Johnson's family, who treated her with the utmost kindness, so that her closing years were those of pleasantness and peace.
"Well, the old lady is gone!" said more than one rugged ruralist regretfully, immediately after her death' "and a better woman never lived," they all added. Said Justice Johnson:
"A more honorable example of vigorous and sturdy womanhood was seldom seen. Her freshness of mind and vitality remained with her in an astonishing degree. Perhaps her most remarkable feature was her green and retentive memory, and she was a cyclopedia of all the every-day news of Bozrah for an age."
Furthermore, she was one of the last survivors of a race of household hands peculiar to New England, who "jest worked 'round for a livin'," like the Yankee "hired man," and toiled early and late with unexampled fidelity and loyalty, for a very small pecuniary compensation. Yet they were as independent and proud as you please, and it wouldn't do at all to proffer to them the chilly and humiliating hand of charity. In a certain degree, perhaps, a corresponding class of home helpers was met with before the war in faithful old plantation hands in Virginia and Kentucky. In respect of old Abby Smith's exact age there was always somewhat of doubt on the part of her neighbors and the general opinion was that she was a trifle older -- perhaps a year or so -- than she believed herself to be.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1895-02-04/ed-1/seq-5/
Contributor lmills (48614498) adds this: A further biography of Mrs. Abby (Rhodes) Smith can be found in this text on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/yenamesagesofall00nash/page/6/mode/2up
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