FIRST GLIMPSE

Learning From Ova

Much has happened since May 25, 1904. That’s the day when longtime—and I mean really longtime—Free Will Baptist Ova Nunnelee was born in the town of Potter, a quiet country crossroad along the Arkansas/Oklahoma border. The cheerful centenarian recently celebrated her 108th birthday with friends and family at her daughter’s home in Silver City, New Mexico. To put her amazing lifespan in perspective, consider just a few of the things that have happened since Ova’s birth.

Theodore Roosevelt was President (following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901), and 18 different Presidents have followed during her lifetime (so far). She survived the Great Depression and a procession of wars: WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and most recently, the war in Iraq.

Although electrical power had been introduced to cities in the late 1800s, it certainly wasn’t common—especially in places like Potter. It wasn’t until the Rural Electrification Act in FDR's New Deal that electricity arrived in Rural America. The first mass-produced automobile, the Model-T Ford, was introduced when Ova was five. And though Ova never owned an automobile, according to DOT statistics, Americans today drive 136 million cars, 110 million trucks, and approximately one million buses—a total of 247 million registered vehicles.

Ova saw family dinners give way to diners, which, in turn, evolved into a multi-billion dollar fast-food industry. Technology exploded—washing machines, radio, black and white television, color television, eight-tracks, cassette tapes, microwaves, cable television, satellite television, Beta, VCRs, CDs, DVDs, and HDTV. The manual typewriter was replaced by the electric, only to be replaced by the personal computer. The Internet brought the entire world to our desktops, and today, most Americans carry handheld mobile devices that allow them to communicate anywhere, anytime.

Just think of it—Ova is one of a handful of Americans who was alive when the hapless Chicago Cubs baseball team last won the World Series (1908). Cubs win! Cubs win…just not the World Series.

Yet, when Ova glances back through years, it is not the inventions, the wars, or the changes in technology that stand out. It is her family…and what a family! She and husband Dewey—a widower with two children—had seven children of their own. Eighty-eight years after her wedding day, Ova boasts 22 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren, 65 great-great-grandchildren, and one great-great-great-grandchild.

All four of the surviving children—now in their late 70s and 80s—have been married more than 50 years themselves. Perhaps they learned from their parents, who were happily married 62 years, seven months, and 11 days before Dewey passed away in 1987. "I wish just the same for my own children,” Ova recently told a reporter, “long lives and to just continue being happy, enjoying each other, and their own families." [1]

That’s good advice, Ova! And at 108, people should listen!

Eric K. Thomsen is managing editor of ONE Magazine. Contact him at editor@nafwb.org.

[1] Special thanks to Donna Clayton Walker, author of, “Eye to the Past, Joy in the Present,” published by Silver City Sun News for allowing me to quote from her article. For a full-length article about Ova’s life, visit: http://www.scsun-news.com.