Carrie “Evelyn” Samuel celebrated her 104th birthday this month. Born Nov. 3, 1916 in the mountains of Kentucky, she lived through the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The 1937 flood of the Ohio River claimed the city of Cincinati and left her family to be rescued from the family barn by row boats. Samuel saw the introduction of many inventions and said the most important for her was the washing machine. “I needed it for all the clothes, bedding, and towels my children used,” she said.
She has also adapted to social media. “I enjoy the fact that I can have my grandchildren ask their phone questions I have and get an answer,” she said. “I also love that family can send picture on a phone and I can see it right away instead of waiting on a photo.”
Samuel has five children, 13 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and 11 great-great-grandchildren. She was married to E. Ike Samuel, who died after a 50-year marriage in 1984.
Samuel was recently recognized for the second time by the Chesterfield County Centenarian Citizens Information & Resources Office of Aging & Disability Services Social History. She answered several questions for the office to be shared during the special presentation.
She said her best decade was the 1960s. “In 1960 my husband and I traveled out west in a motor home,” she wrote. “We saw the Grand Canyon, went to some mines, dipped into Mexico, and saw Roy Rogers’s home. Roy originally was from Ohio, where he worked in a shoe factory with my husband.”
Samuel’s advice to young folks: “Don’t get on your hands and knees to scrub floors; you’re going to need those knees to work later on.”
The Lord and her family make her the happiest she says. Her daughters-in-law and sons-in-law are her closest friends. Samuel’s faith is important to her. She reads her Bible everyday and tries to live the way God would want her to live.
“See you cup full,” she advises. “Be positive and optimistic because there are so many others less fortunate.”
