By Staff
Jonathan Willis
Dorothy England has seen many changes during her lifetime, including some that she says weren't so good.
But Tuesday, on her birthday, as she looked back on the last 102 years, she just smiled.
"I have had a good life. A wonderful life," said England, who has spent the last five years at Lawrence Place assisted living in Russellville.
"I have never been worried about my age, I have just gone about it," she said.
England, who has a master's degree from Vanderbilt University, spent about 50 years teaching at a variety of levels ranging from 5th grade to college and said she would not have changed a thing.
"I wouldn't take anything for the years of teaching I did," she said. "It's what I wanted to do and I spent my life doing it. Today, after all these years, I got a note from one of my former students."
Her son, Bob England, a history professor at Northwest-
Shoals Community College, shares his mother's birthday and said Tuesday that he wished he knew the secret of her longevity.
"I think her meanness maintained her," England jokingly said. "I think she always took really good care of herself."
As she celebrated her 102nd birthday Tuesday, friends and family gathered around to share in her special day.
"There has never been a time in my life when I didn't have a real good, close friend," England said. "I have lost a lot of them, but that's life."
For a woman who has seen the world change so much in more than a century of life, England said she has no regrets.
"I am glad that I got to 102," she said. "I have seen my son be successful and happily married, what else is there?"
In 1906
A life full of history