107 years old, with so many memories to choose from

By Adrianne Murchison

For the AJC

Even at 107, Georgie Ruth Merrill still makes fast friends. This week a fellow resident at Golden Living Center nursing home in Decatur crashed Merrill’s birthday party just to meet her.

“It touches me to meet somebody at that age that has been around that long,” said Mary Owens, 70. “Both of my parents are gone. She had to be in God’s sight to get to be 107.”

Seated in a wheelchair, Owens was taken by a caregiver to Merrill’s table in the nursing home’s all-purpose living room. The birthday girl rubbed Owens’ hands and said, “Your hands feel good; nice and warm. We don’t have time to talk to each other now but later on we can [chat].”

Merrill was, after all, the center of attention in a room filled with residents singing “Happy Birthday” and eating cake and ice cream as she opened her gifts.

She was the middle of three children, born on July 7, 1903, in Madisonville, Ky. Her father worked as a carpenter and her mother sometimes took in laundry.

In her late 20s, Merrill moved to Detroit and bought a duplex, where she lived with her older sister and younger brother. By then she was divorced with a young daughter and working several jobs. During World War II she worked in a stamp factory and severed her thumb on a machine.

After her daughter died in 1987, Merrill moved to Atlanta to be closer to her granddaughter and son-in-law. He died in 2007. Merrill has two grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

“I wish I could tell you what her secret is," said her granddaughter Pauletta Posey, who lives in Jonesboro. “She is from that era where they ate whatever they wanted. I’m convinced genes play a part in it.”

Perhaps it’s determination that attests to Merrill’s long life. Posey and her brother Earl Gelwicks III, a resident of Louisville, Ky., say their grandmother is a strong-willed woman.

“Her biggest influence on me is she never gave up and was always able to adapt and live out her life,” Gelwicks said. “For some reason, I appreciate the value of her age. My personal goal is to live one year past whatever age she lives to be.”

Until her early 90s, Merrill lived at Wesley Woods retirement and assisted living community and was an active choir member and bell ringer at Tucker First United Methodist Church.

“She is just a happy person,” recalls former choir director, Linda Wrightson. “I went to her 100th birthday party and she sang and danced with all the men.”

Although Merrill’s memory comes and goes, she is ever present in the moment, full of affection and wit.

A favorite saying is, “Cold hands warm heart, dirty feet no sweetheart.”

She is sometimes settled comfortably in her wheelchair in a busy corridor of the nursing home offering comments to passersby.

“She’ll say, ‘Come here, Come here. Your pants are too long, you need to get them hemmed up.’ Or she’ll tell someone else their clothes are too revealing. We love her for it. That’s Georgie,” said Bridgette Tate, the activity director.

There were no such comments from Merrill on Wednesday. She was simply excited to have another birthday.

“I can’t tell you my favorite memory. Got too many. I just love people and family, and everything that’s real and true,” she said.

How to live long and stay healthy

While centenarians hold the key to a long and healthy life, Marietta trainer Jeffrey Tate’s program, Awakenings, promotes the harmony of mind and body fitness. Here are his tips for keeping you on track:

• Eat healthfully. Develop a diet that can keep you fit. Understand that food is fuel, and your body is about fuel. If you have optimum fuel, then your body is more efficient.
• Stay active. Keep your circulatory system healthy. The body works best when it keeps moving on a routine basis -- walking the dog every morning or washing the car. It’s all exercise.
• Manage stress. Centenarians would have developed a better coping mechanism for stressful situations. They understand that all things are small things; and this, too, shall pass.
• Live love and let love. Tate believes we are born with a great need for love and affection. When we have that, we are just naturally healthier. People who are not well loved are naturally not as healthy.