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'Sweet' Louise Crow dies at 107 |
| Channels » Home » News » 'Sweet' Louise Crow dies at 107 |
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February 26, 2005 |
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By Jacob Bennett
Until about a month before she died Thursday at 107, Louise Crowe still cherished independence and insisted on dressing herself.
Before her body and her heart began failing in recent months, Crowe led an active life. She worked as a private cook until she was 80, and didn't move in to Brentwood Nursing and Rehab Center until she was 104.
"She didn't want to be there in the first place," said her 83-year-old daughter, Myra Taylor. "She read her Bible, she read the paper every day until her sight started going bad."
But Crowe made good friends with her roommate, fellow centenarian Mabel Spencer, who died in January.
"She was very lonely after Mabel left," Taylor said.
Born in Morganfield, Ky., on Sept. 4, 1897, Crowe and her family soon moved to Princeton, Ind., where she was raised and where she graduated high school.
Crowe moved into her daughter's home in 1958 and stayed there until 2002.
She had a no-nonsense attitude; at her 105th birthday she made guests stand up straight and teased one for putting on weight.
"She expressed herself freely," Taylor said. "She was very sincere. She was a very sweet person."
Crowe always had a smile and a hug for Carolyn Graves, her recreation assistant at Brentwood. She'd talk about growing up, and would quote the Bible.
"If she had down days, she'd say 'The Lord will provide,'" Graves said.
She was widowed twice and had two children (her son, Harold Daniel Crowe, died in 1991). She had five grandchildren, one who grew up to be a minister and another who married one.
She was a life member of the NAACP. Taylor doesn't know if her mother was the area's oldest resident, but she doesn't know anyone older either.
Crowe loved to sew, making pillows and neck rolls but few clothes.
She was a heck of a cook and knew how to season her food, Taylor said. She wasn't afraid to critique the nursing home food.
And she loved one-on-one visits, said Tina Jean, the social services director. Taylor came every day.
"She loved her daughter," Jean said. "Her daughter's been her life for years."
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