Speth, Jennie Lewis

LEWIS, SPETH, SNIDER, OTHMER, COOPER

Posted By: Connie Street, volunteer (email)
Date: 5/18/2004 at 16:34:22

Muscatine County's oldest living person approaches 107 years

Muscatine Journal, May 17, 2004

MUSCATINE, Iowa - In 1897, President Grover Cleveland was leaving the White House for the second time as the newly elected president, William McKinley, was making himself at home.

Autos were still called "horseless carriages" and the Wright Brothers' first flight was still six years away.

The telephone turned the ripe old age of 21 and Muscatine's Jennie Lewis Speth was born.

Speth is one of more than 50,000 centenarians living in the United States, according to Neenah Ellis, author of "If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians."

Centenarians are people 100 years of age and older and their numbers are growing dramatically. About 50,400 centenarians are alive today, compared to about 5,000 in 1970.

According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 941 centenarians listed in Iowa, making Iowa No. 2 among the 50 states in centenarians per capita.

And according to the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs registry, there are seven centenarians in Muscatine County and three in Louisa County.

Jennie Lewis Speth, the oldest known person in Muscatine County, will observe her 107th birthday June 3 at the Muscatine Care Center, but she really doesn't want anyone to know.

She was born in Grinnell, Poweshiek County, the youngest of eight girls and one boy.

Her father, Hudson Lewis, worked for Spaulding Manufacturing Co. making buggies, but the family did not own a buggy.

"They walked everywhere," said Jennie's daughter, Cleone Snider of Muscatine. "They were very poor."

Snider is Jennie's only child.

"I think the reason {her parents had only one child} is that they saw so much poverty with big families," Snider said.

Jennie was very pretty and never looked her age, according to Snider. Snider said her mother never told anyone how old she was.

She attended Capital City Commercial College in Des Moines, where she learned secretarial skills, then returned to Grinnell after graduation. Her first job was with the Morrison and Schultz Glove Factory in Grinnell. Her husband, Carl, worked for the railroad.

Life in the early 1900s was very challenging physically. Jennie washed clothes with a Maytag washing machine using a lever to operate the machine. It was hard work, but better than using a washboard like her mother had.

Jennie was well known for her pies.

"We never tasted pies like hers anywhere else," said granddaughter Kathy Othmer of Muscatine. "She made them from scratch without a recipe, and the meringue on her soft pies was at least 4 inches high."

Jennie baked wedding pie instead of wedding cake for the wedding of Othmer's sister Nancy.

Cleone and her husband, Norman Snider, moved to Muscatine in 1962, where Norman worked as a pharmacist for Stiles Drug. Jennie, only two hours away, visited often by coming on the train.

Family members say Jennie has a secret she will take to her grave. She wore a large diamond ring that her husband did not give her. That's all the family knows, because Jennie has never breathed a word to her family about where the ring came from.

"We would make up all kinds of stories about the ring," Othmer said. "One was that Gary Cooper gave it to her. (The actor) attended Grinnell College, so it might be possible."

At age 80, Jennie moved to Muscatine to be near her only daughter. She lived at the Clark House until two years ago when she could no longer take care of herself. She drove until she was 95.

Snider's children spent summers at their grandparents' home in Grinnell. It was a special treat.

"We lived in the little town of LaPorte City," Othmer recalls. "They took us to the carnival, the A&W Root Beer stand, the drive-in movies, the library and the Tasty Freeze for ice cream in the evenings. Those were things that were not available in LaPorte City

"We received unwavering love and devotion from our grandparents. We are grateful that our children know her so well. They will be able to remember her and tell their own stories about their Mummum."

Jennie's sisters lived into their 90s. According to Snider, when Jennie was between 100 and 103, she often wondered why she had lived so long. Today her condition prevents her from communicating well.