THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505180278
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 20 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
It's not like Sunday was Winnie Eaton's first Mother's Day. It was her 76th. And her 47th as a grandmother and 18th as a great-grandmother.
But the number of greater significance for Eaton on Sunday was the century mark. She celebrated her 100th birthday at a party her children and grandchildren threw at the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club.
``I lived a quiet, quiet life,'' the stately centenarian said. ``But it was happy. I can't think of anyone who has had a better life.''
When Eaton first moved to the white, wood-frame house on Kempsville Road that her husband built in the early 1920s, there were only two other houses on the road. She has watched the city come to her sprawling country home over the decades. The dirt road turned to asphalt. The woods turned into housing developments, hospitals and churches. And the dribble of traffic became a never-ending stream of cars.
She still lives in the house that's just as spotless as the year she moved in.
``The changes never bothered me,'' she said. ``It's all been so gradual.''
If you drive by her house, you might catch her taking a turn around the yard with the mower before her daughter, Alice Baine, takes over.
``I don't like to sit all the time and do nothing,'' said Eaton, whose gray hair is perfectly coiffed.
Eaton was born just down the road from her house, in what is now the Kempsville area of Virginia Beach. She has lived in the area all her life except for a few years in Farmville, where she attended a teacher's college that is now Longwood College.
After teaching two years, she married Curtis Eaton, who managed a feed and seed store. A year later, their first daughter, Alice, was born, and four years later their second, Katherine.
She passed the years caring for her children, keeping her home immaculate, volunteering for every activity she could at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Princess Anne Road.
``They used to call her Little Miss Dutch Cleaner because she'd get up before dawn and have this whole house clean,'' said Baine, who lives with her mother.
Sunday mornings Eaton would fix a huge meal of fried oysters, fried steak, fried chicken and all the fixings before going with the family to church, where she has been a lifelong member. She still attends weekly.
She now has six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Her husband of 69 years died six years ago. And all of her five brothers and three sisters have died.
Sunday her family wanted to celebrate her 100 years in style, so they rented a room at the club and invited 80 friends and relatives to laud her years as wife, mother and friend.
``She was always there when you needed her,'' Baine said. ``She was just a good ol' Mom.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
Winnie Eaton, who just turned 100, is surrounded by some of her
grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the porch of her home on
Kempsville Road.
by CNB