Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405080057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On Saturday, the 115-year-old woman, who had a penchant for chocolate and held the title of the oldest living person in the United States, died in her sleep in her daughter's Radford home.
Skeete, who outlived two of her three children, moved in with her daughter, Verne Taylor, in the 1950s. She wanted to be closer to her family, said Dan Taylor, Skeete's grandson.
"And it worked out real well, because I was born a year later."
While Verne Taylor and her husband worked, Skeete was housekeeper, nursemaid and storyteller to her three grandchildren.
She talked about her father, a sailor who shipped cattle on the Gulf of Mexico and took hunters for weekend rides. She told stories of her husband, Renn Skeete, a cowboy unlike those on television, said grandson Jon Taylor.
"He was a hard-working, serious man" who carried a six-gun, he said. "She told stories about everyday, hard-working life."
Skeete remained unimpressed by all of the hoopla surrounding her age. She was pleased she lived so long, but didn't think she was special because of it, Taylor said.
When she reached 114 and missed the television news coverage of her birthday, she wasn't fazed. "Old folks are not very interesting," she said.
When she celebrated her 115th birthday on Oct. 27, she said, "I guess that's something, but it doesn't buy me anything."
She was born near Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1878 - a year after Reconstruction ended and a year before F.W. Woolworth opened his first store.
She was trained as a seamstress. In later years she crocheted afghans and sewed quilts.
There didn't seem to be any secret to her longevity, relatives say. Skeete used a walker, slept a good deal and ate lots of sweets.
Since her last birthday, her health had declined, Dan Taylor said. She stopped eating and in the last couple of days ran a fever.
"We feel we've been blessed knowing her longer than most get to know their grandparents," said Jon Taylor. "Her death will be a vacuum in our lives, one that we have not come to grips with yet."
by CNB