THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602280197
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 137 lines
WHEN MARY ``Mamie'' Gomer turned 100 on Feb. 22, she joined the fastest growing demographic in the country, centenarians.
Since 1980, their numbers have tripled - to more than 52,000.
Does the credit go to a good set of genes? To better nutrition and health care? Or to the ability to cope with stress?
``Now the Lord is the one who helped me there,'' Gomer said. ``I just lived an honest life: I didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't run around.''
According to her nieces and nephews, however, the secret to Gomer's longevity lies more in her spirit. Though not quite 5 feet tall, Gomer is still a tower of pure spunk. ``I have never been afraid of much,'' she said with a laugh.
Gomer is familiar to many folks in Portsmouth and Western Tidewater because of her 30 years in sales at The Famous in downtown Portsmouth. Hats and gloves were standard dress for ladies back then, and Gomer remembers afternoons of assisting fashionable local ladies in trying on hats and coordinating ensembles.
Marian Martin, a Churchland resident, remembers moving to Portsmouth from rural North Carolina years ago and being introduced to Gomer almost immediately. ``My mother thought a country girl like me needed some help in dressing right and told me that whenever I shopped at The Famous to ask for Mrs. Gomer,'' Martin said.
``I followed her advice and, for many years, Mrs. Gomer helped select garments which were right for me. She knew all about fabrics, colors, sizes, construction and whether or not the style was suitable.''
Bernard Rivin, The Famous owner and manager, remembers Gomer as one of his most persistent salespeople. ``She was not highly educated, but she was able to sell because nothing deterred her - not the shopper's attitude or a limited selection in the right size,'' he said. ``She would show everything in the store before she let a customer out.''
She was also one of his most observant employees, catching many a shoplifter in the act. ``They would say I ran the risk of getting my head knocked off,'' Gomer said, remembering one incident where a man tried to steal a dress by stuffing it down the front of his trousers.
``When I saw something sticking out of the waistband of his pants I reached down there and pulled it out,'' she said. The surprised thief bolted for the door, where he was apprehended by police.
Gomer and her husband John lived on County Street in downtown Portsmouth before moving to Port Norfolk, where they lived on Mount Vernon Avenue for many years. After John's death in 1956, Gomer remained in her home, doing her own housework and gardening, until four years ago, when she moved in with her niece, Kathering Morgan.
It took a fall and two hip replacements to bring Gomer to the Maryview Nursing Care Center in Churchland, where she has lived for the past two years.
Although the staff encourages Gomer to use a walker, she is still plenty spry enough to go out for dinner with relatives. She favors The Circle in Portsmouth and orders her favorites, fried oysters, french fries and lemon meringue pie.
More than 100 relatives and friends gathered at the nursing home for Gomer's birthday party, sharing memories as they turned the pages of family albums filled with fading snapshots of a different era.
Gomer was born Mary Frances Eason, in 1896, in Gatesville, N.C. That was the same year Henry Ford introduced his gasoline- powered automobile and almost seven years before the Wright brothers made their first heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk.
Soon after Gomer's birth, the Eason family moved to a Whaleyville farm, where she grew up with two sisters and seven brothers.
Morgan remembers the homeplace that still stands in Whaleyville. It had a wide front porch and two separate upstairs areas, ``One for the boys and one for the girls, and each had its own staircase,'' Morgan said.
Gomer tells the story of watching a goat chase one of her brothers around the farmhouse. ``Mamie, on my next time 'round, open the door and let me in,'' he yelled. She opened the door on cue, but was a little too slow closing it, and the goat galloped into the house.
It was at a corn shucking party hosted by her father that Gomer first met John Gomer, a handsome World War I veteran. ``He came over right much before we were married,'' she remembered.
John Gomer owned a Ford model A in which the couple drove to Suffolk to be married in 1922 in the home of a justice of the peace.
The Gomers settled in Portsmouth because John had taken a job as an engineer aboard the Norfolk-Cape Charles ferries, the Pocahontas and the Princess Anne. When John Gomer left for his shifts aboard the ferry, Gomer would jump into the Model A, boosted up in the driver's seat with pillows, and head for Whaleyville or down to Sunbury or Raleigh, N.C., to visit her nieces and nephews.
Although Mamie Gomer never had children, her many nieces and nephews benefited from her love and affection. Among them was great nephew Bernard ``Ricky'' Ricketts, 44, who drove from Richmond with his mother to attend the party.
He had spent the first nine years of his life living next door to Gomer in Port Norfolk. ``I remember an aunt who was always hugging, squeezing, and pinching cheeks,'' he said laughing. In later years, the Gomers replaced the Model A with an aqua 1950 Ford that, according to Rivin, ``stood out from the crowd of other cars.''
``She drove like a madwoman,'' niece Nita Eason remembers affectionately while Morgan recalled that service station mechanics would cover their eyes in dread when Gomer came speeding into the station. ``That Ford was a good car, and I did like to go fast,'' Gomer said. ``I like speed.''
She reluctantly gave up her license 10 years ago, only after a concerned nephew declared the Ford unrepairable.
Flying became Gomer's new love, and in her 80s and 90s she made several trips to Europe, visiting relatives in Norway and spending several weeks in Russia where she aroused official suspicion by chatting too cordially with the hotel staff.
Through the years Gomer's spirit led her into other small adventures such as when she, along with hundreds of others, walked across a frozen Elizabeth River, stopping for a hot dog at a stand set up on the ice midway between Portsmouth and Norfolk. Or when she was rescued by boat from a Court Street apartment house when floodwaters flowed through downtown Portsmouth. Or when she joined jubilant crowds partying in downtown Portsmouth to celebrate the end of World War II.
``I guess you could say she never met a stranger,'' Gloria Allen said. Allen, a niece from Raleigh, remembers Gomer as the aunt who was always there when anyone needed her. ``That is why we are all here today, to give something back to her,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MICHAEL KESTNER
Percy Eason chats with Mamie Gomer at Maryview Nursing Care Center
in Portsmouth.
Cake was served to the more than 100 relatives and friends who
attended the party.
John Gomer and Mary Eason drove to Suffolk in 1922 to be married by
a justice of the peace.
Mamie Gomer gives a hug to her relative, 5-year-old Austin Eason.
by CNB