SHAWNEE — “My daughter is spoiling me to death,” Mildred Smith said Tuesday morning.
Well, certainly not literally.
Mildred’s 103rd birthday is Friday.
A longtime Iolan, Mildred moved to Shawnee in 2001 to live with her daughter, Carmen Williams, age 81.
“She’s doing great,” said Carmen. “If I don’t watch her, she’ll run the vacuum, sitting down.”
The two visited with the Register over the phone, contributing tidbits about Mildred’s long and fruitful life.
“She’s very independent,” said Carmen, “She fixes her own food, washes the dishes.”
“Sissy, I gotta keep moving,” Mildred said in response.
That, she does.
Mildred has nicknamed her walker, “Cadillac,” reminiscent of the big white Cadillac that was her means of transportation around Iola.
While the two share Carmen’s home, Mildred has her own “apartment” created from an attached garage.
“I have to be careful it’s not nicer than my house,” Carmen joked. “We do like nice things.”
A highlight of Mildred’s day is the delivery of Meals on Wheels, as much for the companionship as the food.
Mildred raised six sons and daughter Carmen, “Cookie,” in Iola, with husband York Smith, a railroad foreman, who died in 1979.
“She probably has 70 grandkids,” joked Carmen, referring to her mother’s tendency to “adopt children off the street.”
Like her mother, Carmen, who’s now a widow, said she showered her two sons, Clarence and Tony, “with love and attention,” which attracted their friends like bees to honey.
