The big 1-0-5

Virgie Baker has lived through 26 presidential elections, two World Wars and the Great Depression.

Her family moved to Ohio by way of horse and buggy in 1916, when she was 10.

When she was 16, her and her husband bought seven acres of Ohio farmland for $1,900.

In 1928, she voted for Herbert Hoover in her first presidential election.

She bought her first car, a new Ford V-8, a few years later for $300.

“A lot has changed,” she said on her 105th birthday, Saturday, Aug. 27.

Baker, who is Savannah Court and Cove of Maitland’s oldest resident, said turning 105 is just another birthday. But to her family, friends and the community, it’s cause to celebrate.

Celebrating more than a century

“It’s no different than turning 104,” Baker said with a shrug. “I don’t feel any different. I’m just living, enjoying life.”

But her friends at Savannah Court and Cove, where Baker has lived for four years, felt the milestone deserved a celebration. On Friday, Aug. 26, residents, friends, family and even Vice Mayor of Maitland Linda Frosch gathered to celebrate the occasion.

“When my brother said, ‘Even the mayor’s coming,’ I thought he was joking,” Baker’s granddaughter Debbie Fox said. “Then I walked in and saw her name tag and realized he wasn’t.”

Frosch read a special proclamation honoring Baker.

“We had all the residents come down as well as all her family from different parts of the country who were there for cake and the vice mayor’s proclamation,” said Stephen Liebscher, activities director at Savannah Court and Cove. “Virgie’s really an inspiration on living for everyone.”

A long memory road

Baker’s memory spans periods most often recalled in history books. Prompted by Fox, after a brief pause for thought, Baker can recall dates, times and prices of things dating back to when she and her family first migrated from West Virginia to Ohio.

She remembers living in Akron, Ohio, taking care of her two children and struggling through the Great Depression as her husband worked as a milkman.

“We never felt poor, because everyone was the same as us,” she said. “Everyone was just as poor as everyone else.”

She remembers being determined to learn how to fish like her husband so she would no longer have to stay home when he went off on fishing trips.

“I didn’t want to stay home anymore, so I decided I was going to learn how to fish so I could go to,” she said.

It was those fishing trips that first brought Baker to Florida when the couple would visit Big Pine Key. She wouldn’t call the state home until 2007, when she moved to Maitland to be closer to family.

“I’ve lived a pretty good life,” she said.

Longevity gene pool

These are memories Fox asks her grandmother about frequently on every visit she makes down from Ohio. She hopes to preserve them for not only Baker’s four great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren, but also for all those who come after.

“Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” Fox said. “You don’t think about that, but it’s so important.”

Baker keeps active at Savannah Court and Cove by playing lots of bingo and keeping busy with the retirement home’s varied activities schedule. She keeps her brain sharp by doing crossword puzzle after crossword puzzle.

“She stumps me most of the time,” Fox said. “It’s amazing, everything she’s got in her brain. I just wish I could crack inside that head of hers and know what she knows …. She knows more about life than anyone.”

Baker, who says there’s no secret to her longevity other than maybe good genes, lived on her own in her own apartment until she was 95. And even at Savannah Court and Cove, she does as much as she can on her own.

“On every birthday I have, she tells me she can’t believe she has a granddaughter as old as me,” said Fox, 59. “But I tell her I can’t believe I have a grandmother who’s 105 either.”