Hendersonville's Gretchen Morgan to celebrate 107th birthday on Feb. 21
HENDERSONVILLE - A 1917 photo of Gretchen Morgan when she was 18 months old hangs on the wall at Carolina Reserve of Hendersonville, and whenever she thinks about that photo, a smile comes to her face.
"O, how I loved those shoes," she said on Feb. 9. "I remember loving them so much. I'd wear them all the time."
"Even when you'd go to bed?" asked Carolina Reserve's Daphne Neal.
"Yes, even in bed," Morgan said, laughing.
In just under two weeks, Morgan, who is originally from Ohio and has been at Carolina Reserve since April 2022, will be celebrating her 107th birthday on Feb. 21. She first moved to Western North Carolina in 1996. She has lost her sight in the past couple of years, but according to Neal, Morgan still loves getting her hair done and having makeup put on her.
Morgan has four children, 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Thinking back on her childhood days, she said she remembers singing and dancing, most of all, and going to church with her family on a regular basis.
"I loved dancing and singing as a child and playing games ... doing what we wanted to do," she said.
When recently talking about her life, she recalled two unforgettable weeks that happened 82 years ago.
On Nov. 27, 1941, she married her sweetheart, Byron, and they had plenty of wedding gifts that they left back home as they went on their honeymoon.
"On that Sunday, we decided to drive back home to get the presents. We had the radio on, and all of a sudden, we heard this awful noise. ... It was about Pearl Harbor and it being bombed," she said. "We couldn't believe what we were hearing. We were taken aback. We were just coming back from our honeymoon and we heard all that. It was horrible."
Morgan's husband enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served four years, coming back home after World War II ended. She also had two brothers who fought in World War II but died.
"I fully remember going down to the railroad station. My brother was one of the first draftees from the Akron (Ohio) area. He didn't come back. His brother was killed one year after he was killed," she said. "One brother was 19 and the other was 21, and one was engaged to be married. Those things are hard to take. We had lost our mother in the meantime. It was hard for our family. I remember my grandmother being very upset over those two deaths."
During Morgan's life, there have been 19 presidents: Woodrow Wilson (1913-21), Warren G. Harding (1921-23), Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), Herbert Hoover (1929-33), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945), Harry S. Truman (1945-53), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61), John F. Kennedy (1961-63), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69), Richard Nixon (1969-74), Gerald Ford (1974-77), Jimmy Carter (1977-81), Ronald Reagan (1981-89), George H.W. Bush (1989-93), Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-09), Barack Obama (2009-17), Donald Trump (2017-21) and Joe Biden (2021-present).
Of all those, Morgan said she liked Roosevelt best.
"He was my favorite. He helped protect all the national parks. I loved that about him," Morgan said.
When asked her secret to living to be past 100 years old, Morgan said what she ate was very important.
"I always watched what I ate, always. I think that's a big key to living a long life and staying healthy," she said.
Her diet will be challenged on Feb. 18, as Carolina Reserve is holding a birthday celebration, albeit three days early, for her with music and a cake, donated by Sam's Club of Hendersonville. Shuler's is also providing flowers, Neal said.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Hendersonville's Gretchen Morgan to celebrate 107th birthday on Feb. 21
