Miller sees a lot of history in her 105 years of life
By BURLON PARSONS bparsons@journal-spectator.com

Staff Photo by Barry Halvorson Mollie Miller, 105, gets a birthday ride in a rented limousine with the assistance of her niece Virginia McVey, left, and care giver Patricia Holmes. Mollie will be 105 on March 21. She celebrated with a birthday party Friday at Avalon Place.

When Mollie Miller was born March 21, 1903, the Wright brothers were getting ready for their first test flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the nation's 26th President and the average life span in America was 47 years.

She is a resident of Avalon Place and Friday a birthday party honoring her 105-year life span was held.

A lot of other historical events have passed before the eyes of Mollie in those 105 years and her birth year had many of them.

In the arts in 1903 Enrico Caruso made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera Company in Rigoletto, Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland premieres and Jack London published The Call of the Wild.

The same year kitchen worker "Typhoid Mary" Mallon unknowingly sparked an epidemic, Milton Hershey built a chocolate factory in rural Pennsylvania, Richard Steiff created a plush toy known as a Teddy Bear, and North Carolina pharmacist Caleb Bradham received a trademark for his fountain drink Pepsi-Cola.

In 1903 Binney & Smith Company of New York created Crayola crayons. A box of eight crayons cost five cents.

The average annual salary of a schoolteacher was $358, a night in a hotel was $2, one pound of coffee cost 13 cents, a loaf of bread was a nickel and a stamp cost two cents.

The U.S. Navy established a base at Guantanamo, Cuba, and Marie Curie is the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for the discovery of radioactivity.

That same year the Buick Motor Company is founded in Flint, Mich., the Ford Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit and William S. Harley and Walter and Arthur Davidson build their first motorcycle in Milwaukee, Wis.

Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson of Burlington, Vt., completed the first transcontinental automobile trip from San Francisco to New York in 63 and one-half days. The U. S. has about 8,000 cars but only about 150 miles of paved roads.

While Mollie is still able to see and enjoy the world around her, her hearing and strength are not what they once were. After all she has lived through 17 presidents, the First World War, the Great Depression, World War II, Korean Conflict, Vietnam War and two conflicts in Iraq.

She has seen radio replaced by televisions and flat screens, computers take over the world, from flights of a few seconds to trips by jets and space exploration and automobiles mass produced in the millions.

Mollie has a daughter, Ann Wofford who recently moved from Boling to Lake Jackson, a grandson, great-granddaughter and a great-great-grandson.

Wofford said the birthday party was moved up a week to keep away from having it on Good Friday.

Wofford, an only child born in Mexia, said her mom was born in Matagorda and lived all around the state.

"She married Ray Miller and he was a grocer," Wofford said. "They lived in Corsicana, Mexia, Luling, Boling, Bay City in 1950 and back to Boling in 1980."

Living in the Great Depression, Mollie learned to make her daughter's clothes.

While sewing was not quite her favorite thing to do, she later had a passion for painting floral subjects.

"She loved to paint," her daughter said. "She even sold some of her paintings and gave many away to friends."

Her husband died in 1974. But Wofford says her mother was always an independent woman who never let anything bother her.

"That's probably why she has lived so long," Wofford said. "She never got upset or worried about a thing."