Montgomery County MD Archives News.....Matilda Hodges STANSBURY - Great-Grandmother of Ten Has Survived Five Wars and Is Still Optimistic, July 2, 1942 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/md/mdfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Allison Farnitano farnitano@comast.net July 13, 2009, 7:45 pm Baltimore Sun, Hampstead, MD, July 2, 1942 July 2, 1942 July 2, 1942 Newspaper Article---- Note: The article consistently mispelled "Stansbury" as "Stonsbury" but I will use Stansbury in my transcription. 100-Year-Old Mrs. Stansbury Says Japanese Will Be Sorry Great-Grandmother of Ten Has Survived Five Wars And Is Still Optimistic by Julia Edwards, Staff Correspondent of the Sun Hampstead, Md, July 2 [1942] -- When told last December 7 that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, Mrs. Matilda Stansbury, who will celebrate her one hundred and first birthday next Wednesday, simply commented, "They will be sorry." It is such optimism and even temper that has helped her to live through five wars, in the opion of her daughter, Miss Mary Stansbury, who lives here with her in a large Colonial-style house built before the Civil War. Mrs. Stansbury has not always been on the winning side. Her two brothers died for the Confederacy [probably an exaggeration--they died of TB, but were definately Confederate in their leanings]. She wanted to go to the war as a nurse, but her father put his foot down. "Mit, you'll land me in the old Capital prison," he had told her. "When they do, I'll come wait on you," was her reply. Ten Great-Grandchildren Although some of her ten great-grandchildren wear glasses, Mrs. Stansbury read the Bible and magazines without them. None of her five children can recall her criticizing the changing customs that she has watched during her long life. "Mother always takes things as they come. It is one thing that has kept her alive," Miss Stansbury said. Fed Northern Soldiers In spite of being a strong Southern sympathizer in what she still calls, "Abe Lincoln's war," Mrs. Stansbury fed hungry Northern soldiers who came to the family's farm in Montgomery county. And after the war she married a "Yank." But she protected her father's horses from the blue-uniformed forces. "One night the soldiers came across to take the horses," she recalled. "Jim (an old Negro slave) took a big fence stake and chased the horses to make the soldiers think they were wild." "She remembers those days better that what happened last week," her daughter laughed. Her sons were too young to fight in the Spanish American War, but one served in the medical division of the army during the World War [WWI]. Almost 80 then, Mrs. Stansbury knitted sweaters and afghans for the AEF. A grandson is in the army in this war. But the family tries to avoid war discussions in her presence now. "She has seen too many wars. Why worry her with this one?" said Mrs. Harry P. Cann, another daughter who lives in Baltimore at 4502 Roland avenue. Last of Eight Mrs. Stansbury is the last of eight children. But she is often visited by her 95-year-old sister-in-law, Mrs. Whitfield Stansbury, who lives at near-by Prospect Hill. Until a few years ago she had two other friends over 90 that she often saw. Still able to get around by herself, she recalls proudly that she was once an expert horsewoman. "I rode to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain one time," she said. Another incident of her girlhood that she is fond of retelling is of the time she killed a coiled rattlesnake by wielding a broomstick. Lived On Farm From 1881 to 1895 Mrs. Stansbury lived on a farm where she churned buttermilk, oversaw the grinding of sausage and took great pride in her flower garden. She still likes to sit on the large old-fashioned porch of her home where she has lived for the last forty-seven years. There she has a good view of her flowers, trees and the automobiles on the highway. Always "strongminded," her children say, she doesn't like to be reminded that she is 101 and will not permit anyone to call her "Granny." She is "Grandmother" to the whole family. This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mdfiles/ File size: 4.4 Kb This file is located at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/md/montgomery/newspapers/stansbury-mh1.txt