For 100-year-old, staying busy key to longevity

“It’s beautiful.”

Smiling and greeting her family members and friends, Edith Hammock summed up a century of life in two simple words Sunday as she celebrated her 100th birthday at Penhook United Methodist Church.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Hammock said.
Born just weeks after President William Howard Taft took office and when a brand new Model T Ford cost less than $1,000, Hammock grew up on a farm in Franklin County.  She married William Bryant Hammock in 1927 and the two had four children, Calvin (now deceased) and Lindy Hammock, Betty Hammock Lynch and Mary Ann Hammock Davis.

Fiercely independent, she gets around mostly on her own and still has a valid drivers’ license. She doesn’t drive often, but when her newest great-grandson, Noah Hammock, was born in January, she made her way to see him. Her daughter-in-law, Betty Jane Hammock, said one of the new centenarian’s biggest worries as she approached 100 was that the DMV would not allow her to renew her license.

Asked what her biggest accomplishment has been, Hammock didn’t hesitate.

“Raising my children,” she said.

For Hammock, the secret to living to see a century is keeping her mind and body occupied.

“Staying busy, that has a lot to do with it,” she said. “It keeps your mind going.”