FORT WHITE -- With a smile that could light up a room, Phyllis Dabb celebrated her 105th birthday July 24. She was born in 1904.
“I used to have red hair,” she said. “But now, I’m platinum blond.”
Dabb, who lives in Fort White, has not lost her sense of humor.
“I still have a redhead’s disposition,” she said. “They can change the color of my hair, but not a redhead’s disposition.”
Born before the Ford Model T, she rode a horse bareback to school in central Illinois during a time in U.S. history when there were many fewer highways than exist today.
And she grew up as the oldest of two sisters.
“I don’t know how I did it,” she said. “But here I am.”
She’s not who she was 80 years ago, but her heart is. And with a fresh face for the world around her, she said, “I’ve enjoyed life.”
“I love it.”
She said she certainly has her up days and her down days. But she deals with it.
“You do the best you can with what you have,” she said.
She enjoys sweets, chocolate and cinnamon buns. Sitting on her recliner holding a chocolate treat given to her for her birthday, she joked, “Breakfast in bed.”
She took care of animals all her life and enjoyed herself.
“Just have fun,” she said. “I like to have fun.”
She lived a life out of a movie. Her husband worked on a Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. She, however, lived “in a suit case.”
Her grandfather taught her how to read and write and she lived in a world where one teacher taught every grade until high school. She was a daddy’s girl who could ride anything on a farm.
And she danced in the Trianon dance club in Chicago as a teenager.
She graduated from Northwestern University in Chicago, not expecting to get married, but she did. Married in World War II, she lived out of a suitcase and followed her husband wherever he was stationed in the Navy.
“I couldn’t keep a job,” she said.
When she was married, she smoked.
“Everyone did,” she said.
But that didn’t last long. After realizing tar was going down her throat, she stopped.
“We can’t realize how wonderful our bodies are,” she said. “It even works when we sleep.”
One the things she remembers as a child is that her mother taught her never to abuse her body.
“They are doing everything to a beautiful machine,” Dabb said of people who abuse their bodies.
She now lives with her companion, Jasper, a 15-year-old Dotson.
“He’s 105, too,” she said, joking. “He’s the oldest one I’ve ever had.”
Dabb owned the dog’s mother when she bred Dotsons and participated in the birth of Jasper.
“All he wants to do is get on my lap,” she said. “He’s my pal now.”
With 105 years of experience under her belt, she’s had a colorful life. She came from Illinois to Miami when Miami wasn’t a booming city. She can speak Latin and wishes she had taken Spanish.
“I love Spanish,” she said.
Now at her age, she has challenges
“(At) 105, nothing works anymore,” she said. “Don’t get old.”
But Dabb still has her memory. One relative, Jan Beets, said Dabb remembers the conversations about the Civil War between her grandfather and uncles.
“(It) blows my mind,” Beets said.
She enjoys picking Dabb’s brain.
“She has the most amazing stories,” Beets said.
Beets said she remembers Dabb’s stories about living in the 1920s.
“Can you imagine driving down to Florida from Illinois the way the roads weren’t paved,” Beets said. “It took guts. She had moxi.”
