Born on the Fourth of July, ‘Miss Elsie’ Hand turns 100

When America celebrates its 250th birthday this July 4th weekend, Elsie Peacock Hand’s friends and family will gather to celebrate with her as she turns 100.

In the remarkable century that she’s lived, “Miss Elsie,” as she’s known to many of her friends, has seen Atlanta and America transform. In the process, she transformed along with them, from a young secretary in state government to wife and mother, bank vice president and country music promoter.

She also served as the mayor of Pelham, a member of the Electoral College and a member of the Georgia Board of Regents. When she was 75, she went to work as a top aide to U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, where I first met her.

When I called her recently to say I’d like to write a column about her birthday, she immediately said, “Oh, I haven’t done anything worth mentioning.” But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

Elsie Peacock was born on Independence Day, 1926, in Birmingham, Alabama, and her family soon moved to Avon Avenue in Atlanta, a city so young at the time she still remembers horses and wagons sharing the roads with cars.

She can also recall sitting on her grandmother’s steps as President Franklin Roosevelt’s motorcade drove through Atlanta on a Southern campaign swing, as well as the fear during World War II, when her parents hung a flag outside their house with four stars to represent her four brothers, who had all deployed overseas at the same time.

She remembers her days at Commercial High School, when many of the boys in her class were drafted and she became class president, valedictorian and a leader in the campaign to allow 18-year-olds to vote in Georgia elections. They soon did, with Elsie casting her vote among the first group of ballots.

The list of all she’s done in 100 years could fill a book instead of a column, including her decades of community service. “And don’t let me forget the time I was stuck on an elevator at the state Capitol with Adlai Stevenson,” she laughed. Did I mention she’s written a book, too?

But more important than what she’s done in her century is how she’s done it, still living on her own in Alpharetta and sharing a laugh with friends as her 100th birthday approaches.

What is it like to turn 100? I asked her, as our interview began. “I never buy green bananas!” she laughed. “I never know how long I’ll have to eat them.”

Her answer revealed the sense of humor that has sustained her through the inevitable losses that a long life brings, along with her deep faith in God. “The one thing I know is to meet God in the morning if you want him with you throughout the day,” she said.

Her lowest point, she said, was the death of her husband, Fred Hand, the former speaker of the Georgia House. “He was my rock. When I lost him, I was totally desolate,” she said.

Her greatest joy, apart from her family, was starting a business in the 1980s to bring country music acts to Albany and all the excitement and revenue that meant for still-developing southwest Georgia.

“I tried to have family shows at a good price,” she said. As luck would have it, one of the first concerts she booked was “a little act nobody ever heard of,” offered to her as an opening number at a price she could afford.

“That little act was the Judds,” she said. Her country music business was off and running.

Over the years, she also became close with Gov. Zell Miller and his wife, Shirley, as they campaigned through southwest Georgia when he was lieutenant governor and governor. Elsie’s proudest role, she said, was being appointed to the Board of Regents by Miller and serving as he proposed and implemented the HOPE scholarship.

“I think of the young people who have a college education who never would have without the HOPE scholarship,” she said.

She became mayor of Pelham when she was elected to lead the town of 5,000 by affirmation, meaning she never ran for the job. She was reelected after a group paid her filing fee and asked her to run for one more term.

In the years she and I worked together in the Senate, she in her 70s and I in my 20s, we were friends, office-mates and afternoon coffee dates. She arrived every day in a tailored suit with a brooch and necklace. She still often wears a jaunty hat to add pizzazz to any outfit.

Along with laughing a lot about the absurdity of politics then and now, she also taught me about the pride people take in their small towns, the value of public service at every level, not just Congress, and the importance of treating everyone you meet with honor and dignity.

They say the secret to a long life is having a wide community, and Elsie has built her own, one friend at a time. Her lifelong habit of introducing herself in nearly any room with a, “Hello, I’m Elsie Hand,” has likely extended her life longer than any exercise program or diet ever could.

“That’s just what you do,” she said.

Tina Coria met her nearly 40 years ago as a new staffer to then-U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn when she was sent to meet leaders around the state, including Elsie Hand.