THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409180061
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
When her daughter recently reminded Georgie Ella Gray Jordan she'd celebrate her 114th birthday today, she had a modest reply: ``Don't you tell nobody.''
But Ruby Jordan Smith decided not to keep her mother's story to herself. Smith, who will turn 94 next month, is Jordan's only daughter.
They lived together for decades, until Jordan was 110, in a one-story home in the East End of Newport News. Smith still lives there, amid old photographs, scrapbooks and playbills from shows by Jordan's favorite performer, singer Marian Anderson.
When Jordan was born on Sept. 18, 1880, Rutherford B. Hayes was president. By the time Congress approved the women's suffrage amendment in 1919, she was 39.
Over most of the next 75 years she stayed in good health.
``She's never really been sick, and the only thing she's ever taken is aspirin,'' Smith said of her mother. ``I guess she's taken care of herself - like she's always eaten balanced meals.''
While she eats well, she has a weakness for chocolate.
``Georgie squeals when we bring her chocolate, especially Hershey's kisses,'' said Vicki Epker, a spokeswoman for the James River Convalescent Center, where Jordan lives. ``Of course, at her age, she can eat whatever she wants.''
Jordan is likely the oldest living person in Virginia, a spokesman with the Virginia Health Department said. Because the Health Department's division of vital statistics did not keep steady records at the turn of the century, there is no way to document whether anyone in the state has lived longer.
Jordan has been blind for 14 years, rarely speaks and is bedridden for most of the day. But workers at the convalescent center said she is still alert and recognizes visitors.
``She knows people by voice, and she's always listening to what goes on around her,'' said Yvonne Little, a senior nursing assistant who has been taking care of Jordan for more than three years.
Jordan is happiest, Little and Epker said, during her daughter's weekly visits.
``She'll take Ruby's hand and put it up to her face,'' Little said. ``And she still calls her `Baby.' ''
Jordan was born in Macon, Ga. She met her husband, William Jordan, in 1898, and the couple moved to Newport News in 1908.
During World War I, Jordan and her family lived near Camp Stewart, an Army base on 25th Street.
William Jordan, who ran several shoe shops on the Peninsula, died in 1946.
KEYWORDS: CENTENARIANS by CNB