A Full Life
At age 103, Gertie Lewis White lives with a glass-half-full kind of optimism
By Scherrie Goettsch • Photos by Jennifer Kettler
When Gertie Lewis White, age 103, first came to Columbia, its population hovered around 20,000 people. “There weren’t any outlying buildings or supermarkets,” she says. “There were no shopping malls. Everything was downtown. There were little corner grocery stores all over town where people traded. You’d get up early in the morning and call your grocery order in, and they’d deliver it. They’d put it right on your counter in the kitchen.”
Buying groceries today falls mostly on the shoulders of her daughter, Jane Smith, 77, and daughter-in-law, June Rutter, 80, who says: “I’ve had two hips done and a shoulder replaced, and I broke a rib. I’m a walking pile of junk.” Despite June’s less than perfect physical condition, she and Gertie live under one roof and benefit from sharing most of their meals together. June likes to prepare meals from the bounty of her garden plot just outside their doors. That’s right. Doors. The two women live together, but Gertie lives upstairs and June lives downstairs — each with her own entrance and utilities. This unique arrangement came about shortly after Gertie turned 90 — and quit driving.
At 90, Gertie (twice a widow) still lived in her own home on Sondra Avenue, mowed her own lawn, washed her windows and, among other tasks, took care of 15 prize rose bushes. All good things come to an end, however. “I was washing the big picture window,” Gertie says, “and I fell backwards and hit my head.” Revealing her self-deprecating sense of humor, she adds: “I never hit anything but concrete when I fall… I have a hard head, just ask her.” June is quick to agree, “She (Gertie) has never broken a bone…and she has fallen a lot.” Jane chimes in, “Look at mother’s stature; when she falls, she rolls.”
After the ladder incident, Gertie’s grandson, David Rutter, of Ashland, came and took away her ladder and lawn mower. It was time for a major change. Later that fall, Gertie’s son, Charles Rutter, called to tell her that she wouldn’t be staying there for Christmas and was to move into the vacant apartment on the second floor above him and June. “We rented out the upstairs, and it turns out this is a pretty nice place, so we thought it would be nice for Gertie to live here, and she wouldn’t have to do all that other stuff,” June says.
Charles seemed to anticipate his own health decline, and being the dutiful son, he took extra precautions before he died in 2001. Even though she could walk up the 14 steps to her new apartment, Gertie readily recalls, “My son had a chairlift put in the day after I moved in — despite my protests.” For a number of years the lift was mostly handy for hauling groceries upstairs, but ultimately it served its intended purpose. In fact, the entire upstairs/downstairs arrangement worked out well for both Gertie and June. “My son knew we got along,” Gertie says. June agrees, “She’s been a mother to me longer than my own mother.”
About six years ago, Jane and her husband, Ray Smith, left their home in Michigan and moved to Columbia so they could be closer to help June and Gertie. “I get books on tape for Mom at the library,” Jane says. “I see her on Monday for bridge; on Tuesday morning one or the other takes her to Phillippe’s to get her hair done. …” In preparation for Sunday services at Huntsdale Baptist Church, Gertie takes a tub bath every Saturday. “When I was a kid, growing up on a farm north of Centralia, we never even had a bathtub,” she says. “We’d take a washtub, fill it with water and set it out in the sun to let it get warm. No one had a bathroom; everybody had an outhouse — but I sure wouldn’t want to go back to that. … Some things are a lot easier now, and some things are harder.”
“When my husband died, I thought the world had come to an end,” Gertie says. James A. Rutter, known as ‘Pete,” died at age 53 in the mid-’50s in Denison, Texas. The couple had just finished building their custom dream home, but the Rutters never lived in it. Gertie sold it soon thereafter to the man who built it, and then she moved back to Columbia. Seven years later, she married her second husband, Butler White, but within two years he died of cancer.
“I knew when Mr. White died I had to go to work,” Gertie says. “I had some insurance, but I knew I didn’t have enough to live on — if I lived very long.” At age 60, Gertie learned to drive a car so she could get to Stephens College, where she worked as a food supervisor for 16 years.
A lot has changed in Gertie’s lifetime. Since she was born in 1906, all six of her siblings and many of her friends and relatives have passed away. Still, she is grandmother to seven children and great-grandmother to 17. Only in the past few months has she started to use a cane, partly because a man at the senior center gave it to her.
Besides faith and all the good food June prepares for her, June believes that Gertie’s secret to a long life is that “she has good genes, so that’s a good start right there.” For Gertie, however, her personal formula to longevity is red wine. “I have my glass of red wine every evening at 5 o’clock — and it’s always Riverboat Red,” she says. Her doctor prescribed one glass a day, and her grandson buys it for her by the case. Not coincidentally, her wine bottle stopper reads: “Happy Hour at Any Age.”
