Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993 TAG: 9308260331
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She rode in a wheelchair, the result of breaking her hip two years ago in a fall.
She now lives - "incarcerated," she says - in the Nursing Center at Richfield Retirement Community west of Salem.
Otherwise, she is as spry as ever.
At the party Friday, Guy remembered many of her former associates who turned out to wish her well.
But the activity - attended by about 75 people - began taking its toll on her in the afternoon.
"It's been going like this all day. My head is in a swirl," Guy said after numerous people had stopped by to say hello.
The party was arranged by Guy's only child, Richard, a retired mining engineer who lives in Lakeland, Fla.
"We're 100 only once," he said. "Anybody who reaches this point needs to be recognized."
Mary Guy, though, is well-remembered in Salem for a variety of activities, walking being only one of them.
She has been a widow for most of her adult life. Her husband died in 1918. She never learned to drive and never owned a car.
For that reason she walked - every day until her fall. When the weather was clear, she walked the streets of Salem. When it was not clear, she paced back and forth on the big back porch of her house at 420 E. Clay St. - a house she still maintains as a home to which she hopes to return.
She continued this walking schedule until she was 97, her son said.
Guy also is remembered for being an employee in the Roanoke County commissioner of revenue's office for many years. Additionally, she was a poet, author and sketcher.
Throughout her life, she has written many poems and made numerous sketches of people and scenes she knew. She's also written three autobiographies detailing her life and times.
Richard Guy said he did not learn of the extent of his mother's endeavor until several years ago, when she fell and broke her pelvis. She spent a few weeks at Richfield then, he said; and while she was there, he gathered up her literary and art works.
Since then, he has had her literary works bound into five books.
Copies of her books were on display at the party.
One book, "Me and the House," about her Clay Street home, was written by Guy in longhand and typed by friends.
Richard Guy said his mother was frugal and always paid cash. She cultivated a garden until she was in her 90s, he said, and canned any excess vegetables.
Mary Guy was born in Salem in 1893 in a house on College Avenue at Clay Street. The house was across from a Methodist church that has become today's First United Methodist, where she is the oldest member.
She can claim several other firsts, too. Or, at least, notable achievements.
Richard Guy proudly says his mother is the oldest living graduate of the original Salem High School class of 1910.
Until about four years ago, she could name all the countries of the world and the states of the union and their capitals.
Also, she could recite the counties of Virginia, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution and her favorite poems and quotations.
Also, said her son, Guy is believed to have been a notary public in Virginia longer than anyone else. But there are no records to substantiate this.
by CNB