"Starkville resident to mark 100th birthday Tuesday"

"A strong Christian faith and love of life have left an indelible impression a Starkville resident who will celebrate her 100th birthday Tuesday.

"Mrs. Julia Elizabeth Denson was born June 20, 1895, to Sidney Lloyd and Amanda Lucinda Hall Ryan in Rose Hill and spent her childhood in Rose Hill with seven brothers and sisters, she being the oldest.

"She graduated from Clarke Memorial College (then a four-year college) in Newton, where she studied Latin and Greek. She then taught school in Hickory in 1916-17.

"Mrs. Denson married her husband Leonidas April 13, 1918, in Auburn, Ala., where he was a student in veterinary medicine. After graduation, Dr. Denson went to work for the Bureau of Animal Industry. During his career he was transferred frequently, and the family moved to many different locations, including Louisville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., Ackerman, Columbus, Houston, Greenwood, and Kosciusko, before moving to Starkville in 1936.

"They had one son, Leon Denson III, who died in August 1990, and three daughters, Mildred Mc Reynolds, Louise Crafton, and Sidney Ruth Morrow, all residents of Starkville. She also befriended and. opened her home to a niece and a homeless girl who after unexplained absences was discovered to he a 'lady of the night.'

"During World War II, their son served in the Army and was wounded in Germany. She had the family organized so that his sisters and father were assigned different days of the week to write V-mail letters to him so that he might get a letter every day. During the war years, she went regularly to a room upstairs in the Barr Building on Main Street, where women gathered to fold bandages for the war effort; one of her daughters remembers going with her and such things as the ladies folding bandages could not wear any nail polish.

"Mrs. Denson's father was a Methodist, and her mother a Baptist, who attended church with each other in their small town of Bay Springs. She joined the Methodist church and only became a Baptist in the mid-1940s after a pastor came to First Baptist Church, Starkville, who required that one be a member to work in the Sunday school.

"She was an active participant at First Baptist for a long time but had never joined it because of the 'closed communion' policy did not seem right to her, and the physical act of immersion truly terrified her. She had found her niche in the church nursery after having to stay there with her youngest child - the child moved on to other departments as she grew older, but Mrs. Denson stayed rocking babies for as long as she was able. Several years before her nursery retirement, First Baptist Church honored her with a special day because of the loyalty, competence, and love she had shown.

"She not only kept the nursery but was also the 'cradle roll' director, visiting new babies and their families, as well as delivering monthly literature to the mothers of babies enrolled. Her family wishes they had kept count of the people who have told them that Mrs. Denson was the first person to visit them when they moved to Starkville, or when their children were born.

"Mrs. Denson also loved flowers and tending her flowerbeds, which she did with an old butcher knife as her only implement. Although she never sprayed her roses, they thrived, and her house and lot had beautiful flower perimeters. She loved to share her plants, and family members say her plants thrived because she gave so many of them away.

"After her husband's death in 1952, she considered trying to work in a bank because she had done that earlier and enjoyed it, but her age (57) was against her. Because there was a great mutual love among her and babies and their parents, which had been proven from her years in the church nursery, she began baby sitting.

"'I started with one of the nursery parent's needing me for an hour or so, and then it just seemed to grow,' she said in June 1977.

"She was a very popular baby sitter, and had more offers than she could fill. One of the fathers for whom she baby sat said he liked picking her up and taking her home because she could talk more than whether it had rained that day.

"Not new to this paper's publicity, Mrs. Denson was featured as 'Cook of the Week,' June 1, 1977, and as 'Monday Person' on December 20, 1982, as well as the focus of an article on her special recognition day by her church.

"Her sensibility and good nature have stood her and her children in good steed through the years. In 1980 when renewal time was approaching for both her driver's license and car insurance, she decided it was time for her to quit driving, thereby sparing her children from wringing their hands and saying, 'How can we stop Mama from driving?'

"After surgery about four years ago, she decided on her own that she would go to Scribner's Personal Care Home from the hospital until 'she was back on her feet,' and soon decided that she would stay there because she enjoyed in the sense that about half her Sunday School class was there, people came in all day long, and the care, meals, and kindness provided created a good home for her.

"After figuring her finances she decided she could stay there as economically as at home with the help she needed, the meals, utilities, and other expenses were considered and included. As she said, she was tired of having to even plan meals for someone else to cook. So she happily moved to Scribner's. Asked how she's doing, she sometimes answers, 'Well, I'm fine - who wouldn't be with people around all day long to wait on them hand and foot?' She usually answers, 'Have you had a good day?' with 'Yes, I nearly always have a good day!'

"She is deaf, but true to her sunny disposition, she says, 'At least being deaf doesn't hurt.' Some time ago when one of her daughters took her for an appointment with her lawyer, she began the session by stating 'You should remember that I am not dumb, but I am deaf.' She has said that sometimes people assume that a little stupidity comes with deafness, but the truth of the matter is that the individual is unable to hear what has been said.

"Her physician, Dr. Kermit Laird, has said he wishes all his patients were as delightful.

Her good, joyful, long life is a tribute to her strong Christian faith. She credits some of her excellent well-being to a blessing she was given as an infant hen her grandfather lay on his deathbed. Some of the family sat beside the old man, and he blessed her, 'just like in the Bible,' she says, and she believes the blessing is still lasting nearly 100 years later.

"She facetiously says she wonders whether God loves her because of the verse that says, 'Whome the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,' and she feels that except for her husband's sudden death at a relatively young age and her son's death a few years ago when he was 65, she has never been chastened.

"When facing problems or even tests in school, her children would ask her to pray for them, and concerning the tests, she would answer with a twinkle, 'I will pray you will remember what you have studied and learned, not that God will give you a revelation of the answers.'

"Her feelings about her life are more the result of her positive attitude than material good fortune. She has been an extraordinary role model for her family, as well as others, providing her children, 13 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren with a wonderful heritage.

"Mrs. Denson's family is hosting a 100th birthday party for her from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday in the chapel parlor of the First Baptist Church. Her friends are invited, with the request of no gifts."