Local woman marks 101 years today
Aug. 5—ASHLAND — With friends and family, Helen Doris Woods Kitchen will celebrate her 101st birthday today.
Kitchen said there's not going to be a party, but daughter Suzy Cheek said there will be cake, cards, balloons, presents and flowers, in part, to make up for a lack of a 100th birthday party, as she had COVID-19 at that time.
"I couldn't taste anything," she said of the experience, but said that's the only symptom she had.
The Webbville native remembers her hometown as a big lumber town with the EK Railway using it as a turnaround spot.
Her parents, Ray E. and Lula Mae Houck, owned Woods Family Store, a country store with everything a resident of the town might need. "My little brother played checkers with the customers," she recalled.
The family moved into an 1893 Victorian farmhouse when she was 5, and the family lived a farming life, raising a garden and toting water from a well.
While Kitchen, the second oldest of seven children, didn't work much at the store, she went on to earn a vast amount of retail experience.
But first, she graduated from Webbville High School in 1939 as valedictorian, going on to get an education degree from Morehead State Teacher's College. She taught at Caney Falls School, in a one-room schoolhouse for four years, then worked for Armco for a year and met her future husband, Edgar, who served as a surgical assistant during World War II; when he returned from the war, they married in 1945.
While raising their family (daughters Debbie and Suzy and son Brett), the Kitchens worked hard to make a living, building the now-defunct Kentucky Motel while Mr. Kitchen maintained his barbershop in the Henry Clay Hotel.
Over the years, they also owned Kitchens Grocery Store in Locust Grove, Ohio, and brought Log Cabin Motor Court at 49th Street and Winchester. While caring for her husband and three children, Mrs. Kitchen also did payroll and bookkeeping for all the family businesses. The also started Elmwood Village, the first nursing home in the region, daughter Suzy said.
An excellent cook, she was known for her custard pie, cornbread, beef stew, mashed potatoes and nutmeg sugar cookies.
Her husband died in 1986; by the 1990s, Mrs. Kitchen was able to retire and enjoy traveling to such locales as Australia, New Zealand and Russia. She also continued to enjoy being a member of First United Methodist Church in Ashland and volunteering for Meals on Wheels and King's Daughters Medical Center.
The most significant change Mrs. Kitchen has seen in the world, she said, is the proliferation of greed. She said when she was a child, people who lived near a school let children who rode horses to school keep their animals in their barns for free.
While COVID-19 and a broken hip slowed her down, Mrs. Kitchen said she enjoys eating, watching television and reading The Daily Independent every day; she's been a subscriber since the 1940s. She said when they owned the motel, they purchased a newspaper for each room.
Mrs. Kitchen said she's not sure what contributed to her long and healthy life; daughter Suzy said her mother has always been very calm and even-tempered, never getting overly excited or extremely upset. Whatever the cause, the blessing isn't lost on Mrs. Kitchen.
"It's been a blast," she said.
(606) 326-2661 — lward@dailyindependent.com
