Oklahoma woman celebrates 114th birthday

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Frances Hopkins, who was 110 years old before she found a need to visit a hospital, will celebrate her 114th birthday on Monday.

But it will be a quiet celebration for Hopkins, said her granddaughter, Frances Parks.

"We're not planning a party because she's so weak," Parks said.

Hopkins, who lives in northeastern Oklahoma City with a granddaughter, Erma Lee McCoy, was born in La Grange, Ark., to a former slave exactly 21 years after the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery was ratified on Dec. 18, 1865.

"She lived by herself until she was 109," Parks said. Until then, Hopkins lived in Boley, in Okfuskee County.

At the age of 105, Hopkins had two pistols and a rifle.

"I hit what I shoot at," she once confided to a friend. She still does not wear eyeglasses, has her own teeth and doesn't take medication. She uses a wheelchair but has been bedridden recently with a broken ankle.

Although the family claims no secret to Hopkins' longevity, some credit is given to her diet.

"There weren't a lot of processed foods then," Parks said.

"Grandma always had a garden. I remember her walking along and picking the okra and hot peppers and eating them right there."

Hopkins loved to be outdoors, often walking five miles each way to visit friends.

"I remember her walking five miles to see my father," said Fleeta James, a lifelong friend of the family who calls Hopkins her grandmother. "She always said he was her boyfriend, even in front of my mother."

Hopkins has a reputation as an outspoken woman.

"I most remember her telling me off," James said. "I would call her by her (first) name and she would get after me. I would be far enough away that she couldn't hit me."

Hopkins believed in many home remedies. People would bring their babies to Hopkins when they were sick.

"I remember when my brother's grandbaby had thrush," James said. "She blew into the baby's mouth and she was OK in about an hour."

Hopkins has seen an amazing amount of change in her lifetime, from the advent of the automobile to women suffrage to cellular phones. She remains fond of simple pleasures. She watches religious shows on television and looks out her bedroom window.

Jones and Parks recall Hopkins' love for sitting on the porch.

"She would sit on the porch and smoke her pipe," Jones said.

She also dipped snuff and chewed tobacco, Jones said.

"She told my husband right after we were married not to smoke cigarettes, but to smoke a pipe like hers," Jones said.