DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110049

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: MOYOCK                            LENGTH:  116 lines

NANCY MITCHELL SMITH, THE OLDEST KNOWN RESIDENT OF CURRITUCK COUNTY: 113 AND COUNTING SMITH HAS A LOT TO LOOK FORWARD TO ON MOTHER'S DAY: SHE HAS 131 LIVING CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN.

Nancy Mitchell Smith doesn't look a day over 90. Maybe even 85. And certainly not what she is, which is 113 years old.

Her ebony skin remains relatively taut, leaving surprisingly few wrinkles for more than a century of exposure to the elements. Her original teeth are freshened by daily gum-chewing, discolored from dipping snuff.

The Moyock woman walks with deliberation and, sometimes, a cane. Her bedroom vanity is void of prescription bottles.

``She ain't diabetic. She don't have no complaints. She's just old,'' says Mary Cowell, a daughter who is diabetic.

Smith's advanced age brought her a proclamation at an April meeting of the Currituck County Board of Commissioners.

``The board thought it would be appropriate to recognize Ms. Smith for her many years in the community,'' Chairman Paul O'Neal said before presenting a handsome plaque.

O'Neal, a lifelong resident, admitted he'd never heard of Smith before someone in another county told him about her.

That's not unusual. For having been around so long, Smith has kept a relatively low profile.

The honoree, wearing her favorite black wig under a stylish felt hat, graciously accepted the applause, standing ovation and series of handshakes from local officials.

``I appreciate it very much,'' she told a tide of well-wishers.

Easter Dozier presented her with a silk floral arrangement on behalf of the Moyock Homemakers Extension Club.

Were you to visit Smith's six-room bungalow on a dirt road behind busy N.C. 168, you'd know the woman is partial to silk flowers.

Mums, gladioli, roses and daisies - just to name a few - compete for table, floor and wall space with family photos, bric-a-brac, faded oil paintings and religious icons.

``The house looks like a cemetery,'' Cowell says, giving a cursory glance to crowded corners. ``We got a graveyard over there, and a graveyard over there. Everywhere you look is flowers.''

But those flowers are a living memorial to a woman who helped raise this house and the only family ever to occupy it.

``So if you have parents, honor them while they're living. Give them flowers while they can smell them. They cannot see them when they are dead,'' her daughter says.

Nancy Smith did not talk much about her upbringing while she was raising her own 13 children. Now, her life must be told through them.

``She has Alzheimer's,'' explains Cowell, who doesn't know much more about her mother's condition.

Nancy Mitchell married Moses Smith, a farmer, in 1913 in South Mills.

They moved with their large brood throughout northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia before settling in Moyock.

As children moved out, grandchildren moved in.

There were two that Smith especially misses and will go looking for if she is allowed to wander alone outside.

Smith ``worked like a hound dog'' to help erect the white wooden house, paid in full with proceeds from potatoes, corn, peas and cotton, Cowell says.

She also raised her own hogs, geese and chickens.

The house, now located behind a service station, is in need of some work but still is structurally sound. It has only been in the last few years that Smith quit tending the gardens and working on home repairs.

Gerontologists say there are certain things that most centurians have in common: spirituality, activity, history of longevity and light diet.

Nancy Smith is a big believer in God; she goes to church every Sunday.

Her parents both died in their 60s, but several siblings lasted into their 100s. Smith has outlived all but one sister in Philadelphia, who also is more than a century old.

The diet part, though, is another story.

``Honey, she has a hearty appetite,'' Cowell says. ``She has a good appetite for eating.''

Nancy Smith knows she is old. Not because she feels it, but because the Bible tells her so.

``Show her the paper when I was born,'' she tells Cowell, who moved back home to take care of her mother after her father, Moses Smith, died in 1963.

Cowell begins sifting through a 1954 Bible, scanning hundreds of entries that she transferred from another, older tome.

It is, as far as anyone knows, the only documentation that proves Smith is Currituck County's oldest citizen.

Birth and death certificates were not required in North Carolina until 1913. Smith was born at home in 1884 in South Mills.

The local records of the 1890 federal census were destroyed in a fire.

A scan of microfilmed census records from 1900 Camden County includes several pages on which the ink has faded to the point of being unreadable. Smith's family is not mentioned on any of the legible pages.

Genealogists who frequently peruse such papers say it was not uncommon for families to be missed in early population counts. Or for names to be misspelled.

Because documentation is hard to come by for people born before 1913, agencies such as the Social Security Administration accept old Bible records as legitimate proof of age.

For her advanced years and struggles with Alzheimer's, Smith is remarkably self-sufficient.

She makes her bed each morning and bathes without help. She comes to visitors of her home, not they to her.

She also loves to quilt from scratch.

At last count, Smith had five children still living, 34 grandchildren, 65 great-grandchildren and 27 great-great-grandchildren.

Today will be special for Smith, who tends to reap heavily the rewards of Mother's Day.

Many of the scores of men, women and children in framed pictures throughout the house will stop by to pay their respects to the Smith family matriarch.

The older ones will bring her gifts of stockings, shoes, bloomers and house dresses.

``I take care of her dress clothes,'' Cowell says with an air of authority.

Grandkids will come by with cards.

``That's what's keeping her alive,'' her daughter says. ``Her children have been good to her. They didn't let her down, and that means a lot to her.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot

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