Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 31, 1995 TAG: 9508310034
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W19 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHANNON D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mary Deyerle Guy, best known as Salem's "walking lady" celebrated her 102nd birthday Aug. 21 with her two sisters, Georgie Brown, who will turn 100 in December, and Hilda Miller, 89.
The sisters get together at least once a year, said Richard Guy, Mary's only son and a retired mining engineer who now lives in Lakeland, Fla.
Like most sisters, they can't spend any significant amount of time together without at least one argument, he said. But this time, the three sisters - all who live in Salem - got along well.
"This time they didn't fight," Guy said. He coordinated the birthday party at the Richfield Retirement Community, where his mother lives in the nursing center.
Mary Guy is best known in Salem for walking everywhere she went because she never learned to drive. She is now restrained to a wheelchair after breaking her hip four years ago in a fall.
"She'd walk at least three miles a day," her son said.
"She'll probably live to 110 or 115 at the rate she's going," he said.
Guy has been a widow for most of her adult life. Her husband, Samuel R. Guy, died in 1918.
She and Miller both were employees at the Salem courthouse. Guy also worked as the deputy commissioner of revenue.
She also wrote poetry and taught school for a couple of years.
She has written three autobiographies of her life, her son said. One of them, "Me and the House," about her Clay Street home, she wrote in longhand and was later typed by friends.
With such an eventful life, Richard Guy said his mother is still reaching milestones. He believes she is the oldest notary public in the state, but "they don't have the records to prove if she is or isn't," he said.
He does know, however, that she is the oldest living graduate of Salem High School - a 1910 alumna.
by CNB