Orangeburg 106-year-old is grateful for her life and family

Eaddy turned 106 on Thanksgiving Day and said she still feels “pretty good.”

“Well, I thank the Lord. I’m doing all right. Any way you fix it Lord, it’ll be all right with me,” she said.

Eaddy is the sole survivor of 17 children born to the late Alice and Samuel Jones in Andrews, South Carolina. She has lived in Orangeburg for more than 30 years.

While she wonders sometime why God has let her live so long, she knows it is his goodness that has kept her and sent loving family and friends to surround her.

“I don’t know. It’s something I think about. You got to go one day. … God is a sweet God. He makes some sweet people. If we pray right and kind of halfway do right, I believe the Lord is going to hold us right here for a while,” Eaddy said.

She continued, “Oh, thank the good Lord. I hope and pray that he’ll keep us here until we can’t say nothing more.”

Eaddy is no stranger to hard work and began working at a young age to help her family take care of her younger siblings. She attended public school in Lake City.

The 106-year-old was married to the late Bishop Roscoe C. Eaddy. They had four children, including Marie Oliver, Barbara Reis, Douglas Ross and Donald Ross.

She is also a grandmother of 14 and a great-grandmother of 20.

Eaddy was a member of St. Mark Holiness Church in Lake City before relocating to Orangeburg, where she attends Cedar Grove AME Church and is mother of the church.

Oliver said it is a blessing to still have her mother alive. She attributes her longevity to the grace of God.

“Grace and mercy. She’s very spiritual. She was married to a bishop and she prays all the time. I can’t say it was food because when she cooked, she would cook everything. Would you eat it? Not necessarily. It was just the idea of cooking,” Oliver said.

Eaddy is well taken care of by her family, including her granddaughter, Ebony Butler, who Eaddy raised.

Butler said she’s grateful for her grandmother’s long life.

“It’s really special. It’s just a blessing to all of us. She’s an inspiring person,” she said.

“I’m just saying it’s prayer, the grace of the good Lord. I can’t even say what me and Ebony do to keep her going. We keep her clean, keep her fed. I come and make her laugh, make her mad,” Oliver said, smiling.

Oliver said her mother’s legacy involves how dedicated she has been to keeping their family together.

“That’s all she talks about, just keeping the family together,” she said.

Oliver said her mom has no special diet, can walk with the help of her walker and is in relatively good health, only taking a Tylenol “every now and then.”

“It’s a blessing. We are blessed. She’ll eat anything. We give her what she wants,” she said, noting that honey wings, corn bread, collard greens, cabbage, and fried and baked chicken are among her mother’s favorite foods.

Cleve Wise is Eaddy’s longtime neighbor — and friend.

Wise and his wife gifted Eaddy on her 100th birthday with a wooden cross that Oliver said she loves to hold.

“We’ve had a few conversations in our lifetime. She’s been wonderful to us,” Wise said, noting that Eaddy would bake a cake for his son, Michael, before he would travel back to Clemson University, where he attended school.

“He’d have a cake for the ride. You talk about God, family and friends. This is it,” said Wise, who stopped by to visit Eaddy a day before her birthday.

Eaddy, who clutched Wise’s hand — and her wooden cross — said, “Seems like you just don’t want to leave each other.”

Wise jokingly asked her how much dancing she’d do for her birthday. 

“I might shake a leg. I might be able to move one foot,” Eaddy said, smiling.