BEFORE BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES to celebrate her 100th birthday, Norma Aylor McWethy Burgess held Naomi Foster’s hand. Foster baked the German chocolate cake for Norma, who told her personal baker, “That’s wonderful.” (Photo by Bob Vlach)
NORMA AYLOR McWETHY BURGESS and her daughter Sheila McWethy Mobley, who live together, are pictured before a celebration of Norma’s 100th birthday at the First Christian Church Life Center on Dec. 18. Norma is holding a picture of her with her brother Ben. (Photo by Bob Vlach)
By Bob Vlach
Woodford Sun Staff
A ladies’ fellowship group at First Christian Church in Versailles – The Tie That Binds – celebrates birthdays every month. This month was extra special because the ladies sang “Happy Birthday” to Norma Aylor McWethy Burgess, who is 100 years old.
The birthday party on Dec. 18 with cake and ice cream came a few days after Norma turned 100 years old on Dec. 12, but she didn’t mind.
“I always tell everybody, ‘That’s alright. I’ll have another one next year,’” says Norma, laughing.
Being the oldest woman in The Tie That Binds doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm for their monthly fellowship meetings because “I’m still young. I don’t feel old,” she says.
That was obvious to anyone who came to the celebration of her birthday in the First Christian Church Life Center last Thursday evening.
“I’m thankful for what I had. Nothing’s so bad that it couldn’t be worse if you just look at it that way,” says Norma.
“I remember when my mother died. I said I could not live without my mother, and here I am all these years later. So, you do what you have to do. That’s all I know.”
Born on Dec. 12, 1925, Norma’s family lived on a farm near Florence, Kentucky, and later survived a flood in Carrollton. “We had to get out of town fast,” she remembers, “because the water was coming into our house.”
Norma’s mother died when she was 13. She lived with her grandparents for a year before going to live at the Kentucky Female Orphan School (KFOS). Her dad was a truck driver and often away, so raising a daughter and a son who had diabetes would have been difficult. Remembering back, she says sending her to KFOS, which evolved into what is now Midway University, “was the best thing my dad could have ever done for me.”
Sheila asked her mother what she used to say when she saw a boy on the FKOS campus. Norma’s response, “Man on campus,” filled the Life Center with laughter.
Norma was also asked to share the most amazing change during her life. “Life got easier,” she says. Growing up on a farm, she and her family didn’t have electricity or running water – “only when we ran out to get it,” her words again filling the Life Center with laughter.
It was while working for Western Union during World War II that Norma met her first husband, Robert (Bob) McWethy, who came home after serving in the Army and being in the Battle of the Bulge. They met on a double date with his best friend and her cousin.
“I saw this man in a uniform and thought he looked pretty good,” Norma told the Sun.
Norma and Bob got married six months after they met and were married for 30 years. His best friend and her cousin “didn’t work out, but they (my parents) did,” says Sheila.
Besides Norma sharing stories about her life, the ladies ate some birthday cake and ice cream after singing “Happy Birthday” to Norma – twice. This celebration was a little bit more than usual, “because this is the first time anyone’s ever turned 100 in the group,” says Sue Dozier.
Norma has lived longer than her older brother Ben, her son and two husbands, and pondered: “I wonder why?”
“I don’t know why it happened, but it happened,” she says.
Norma, who has lived with her daughter Sheila for the last three years, says, “If I didn’t have her, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“I feel so blessed to (have) had her my whole life,” says Sheila, 77. She describes her mother as “very resilient,” having lost her first husband when she was 50. A year later, she lost her son Michael and her son-in-law (Sheila’s husband).
Norma met her second husband, Wendell S. Burgess, a widower originally from Kentucky, at an Army reunion. He was very good to her – taking her to get an ice cream soda, which was special “because during the war you couldn’t buy an ice cream soda if you had a thousand dollars,” she says.
They lived in Michigan (where he had moved for a job at General Motors) for 15 years. After he died in 1998, Norma moved to Versailles, where her daughter lived. Sheila and her mother have lived together for three years.
“I’m happy to do for her,” says Sheila, “because she always did for me. (I’m) just happy to have her around …” And so are the ladies who joined Norma to celebrate her 100 years.