DATE: Sunday, June 22, 1997                 TAG: 9706210045

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E15  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY REBECCA MYERS CUTCHINS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

LIFE IS STILL SWEET FOR 107-YEAR-OLD WOMAN

AFTER GETTING double pneumonia, Annie Parker Higginbotham was given only three days to live.

That was last December.

Today, Annie turns 107.

Annie has lost a few pounds from her bout with pneumonia - she's down to 82 on her 5-foot-2 frame - but she's still into life. She spends most of her days reading. Especially those ``gossip'' magazines about the stars.

``I think it's a privilege that we can have her this long with us. It means a lot,'' said Bertha Woodard of Portsmouth, Annie's 80-year-old daughter, with whom she has lived for the past seven years.

Bertha and her 71-year-old sister, Reba Goffigon, who lives in Churchland, share the responsibility of caring for their mother nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Until he died four years ago, the two sisters also had help from their brother, William Rosser Higginbotham.

The only assistance they receive now is from a home health-care nurse, who comes in daily to bathe and dress Annie, and a paid companion, who comes in two days a week so the sisters can run errands.

``Basically, Bertha's got the bulk of it because she's with her all night, and sometimes Mama's restless,'' Reba said.

The dedication they have to their mother stems from love, the two sisters say.

``And knowing that she's going to be taken care of and seeing that she's taken care of right,'' Bertha added.

Within weeks of Annie's birth June 22, 1890, Idaho became the 43rd state and Wyoming the 44th. Peanut butter was invented the same year; the zipper came along three years later.

Her hair is now white and thin. She wears a hearing aid in one ear, while glasses help correct the remaining sight she has in one eye.

Despite these ailments, Bertha said, her mother has ``a very alert and keen mind.''

Within arm's reach of Annie's narrow, rented hospital bed are neat stacks of large-print Reader's Digest and Guidepost magazines. And, of course, a pile of Hollywood magazines.

``I buy her one or two every week,'' Bertha said. ``She wants to know everything about those movie stars.''

Until a year ago, Annie also enjoyed embroidering and mending clothes.

``I don't do anything anymore,'' Annie said, sitting in a rocker by her bedroom window. ``I used to sew a lot, but I just can't do it right now.''

Before becoming virtually bed-ridden, Annie enjoyed taking frequent trips to the Eastern Shore, where she spent the first 10 years of her life. She moved to Portsmouth at the turn of the century.

``We came over on a large sailboat,'' Annie recalled. ``We moved furniture and everything.''

Annie's family settled in Shea Terrace after her father, James Parker, got a job with Seaboard Railroad.

``I miss going over there,'' Annie said of her visits to the Eastern Shore. ``We used to go two and three times a year. I still love it.''

Annie was one of six children, four of whom lived into their 90s. Annie's youngest sister, 88-year-old Josephine Bridgers, lives two doors down from her in the same senior-citizen apartment complex in Portsmouth.

``She always enjoyed her brothers and sisters and the family,'' Bertha said. ``You never heard of any bickering going on in the family between the sisters and the brothers or anything like that.''

And that, Bertha said, may be part of the secret to her mother's longevity.

It probably helped, too, that Annie never drank, never smoked and was never a picky eater.

``I eat most anything,'' she said.

Almost.

``She won't drink iced tea or eat raw tomatoes,'' Bertha said. ``And she doesn't like milk - but she gets milk and doesn't know it.''

The oldest member of Calvary Baptist Church on London Boulevard in Portsmouth, Annie hasn't been able to attend services for about four years, but she still sends in her offering every month, Bertha said.

She has been a widow for 48 years, never remarrying after her husband, William A. Higginbotham, died when she was 59.

``He was a printer,'' Annie said, looking at a black-and-white photograph of her husband taken in the 1940s at the old Ledger-Dispatch, where he was a linotype operator.

Before getting married, Annie worked at a hosiery mill but quit work after her youngest sister was born.

Annie tended to a lot more children in her lifetime: three of her own, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She now has four great-great grandchildren.

Through the years, Annie says, she has watched fashions come and go in cycles. But there was one fashion trend she never took advantage of: the mini-skirt.

After all, Annie was 75 when it was first introduced. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MARK MITCHELL / The Virginian-Pilot

Bertha Woodard, top, and Reba Goffigon care for their mother, Annie

Parker Higginbotham, who turns 107 years old today.

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