THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 18, 1995 TAG: 9505160108
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
It's not like Sunday was Winnie Eaton's first Mother's Day.
It was her 76th. And her 47th as a grandmother and 18th as a great-grandmother.
But the number of greater significance for Eaton on Sunday was the century mark. She celebrated her 100th birthday at a party her children and grandchildren threw for her at the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club.
``I lived a quiet, quiet life,'' the stately centenarian said. ``But it was happy. I can't think of anyone who has had a better life.''
When Eaton first moved to the white wood-frame house on Kempsville Road her husband built in the early 1920s, there were only two other houses on the road.
She has watched the city come to her sprawling country home over the decades. The dirt road turned to asphalt. The woods turned into housing developments, hospitals and churches. And the dribble of traffic became a never-ending stream of cars.
She still lives in the house that's just as spotless as the year she moved in.
``The changes never bothered me,'' she said. ``It's all been so gradual.''
If you drive by her house, you might catch her taking a turn around the yard with the mower before her daughter, Alice Baine, takes over.
``I don't like to sit all the time and do nothing,'' said Eaton, whose gray hair is perfectly coiffed. ``I like to be doing something.''
Eaton was born just down the road from her house, in what is now the Kempsville area of Virginia Beach. She has lived in the area all her life except for a few years in Farmville, where she attended a teacher's college that is now Longwood College.
After teaching two years, she married Curtis Eaton, who managed a feed and seed store. A year later, their first daughter, Alice, was born, and four years later their second, Katherine.
She passed the years caring for her children, keeping her home immaculate, volunteering for every activity she could at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach.
``They used to call her Little Miss Dutch Cleaner because she'd get up before dawn and have this whole house clean,'' said Baine, who lives with her mother.
Sunday mornings Eaton would fix a huge meal of fried oysters, fried steak, fried chicken and all the fixings before going with the family to church, where she has been a lifelong member. She still attends every week.
A multitude of family members have been born over the years - she has six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren - and others have died. Her husband of 69 years died six years ago. And all of her five brothers and three sisters have died.
Sunday her family wanted to celebrate her 100 years in style, so they rented a room at the club and invited 80 friends and relatives to laud her years as wife, mother and friend.
``She was always there when you needed her,'' Baine said. ``She was just a good ol' Mom.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
Winnie Eaton, who just turned 100, is surrounded by some of her
grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the porch of her home.
by CNB