100? It's been grand

By Lauren Ricks

March 24, 2008 09:23 am

— Alice Coker Ward has lived through two world wars, a tornado, a flash flood and cancer. That made March 21 all the more sweet, when she celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends.
She was born in 1908 to B.M. and Minnie W. Coker. She was one of seven children, and she’s proud to mention that she and all her brothers and sisters graduated.
“I was born and raised a Henderson County girl,” Alice said.
She graduated from Athens High School in 1928 and moved to Dallas to attend a private business school. Alice worked as a stenographer in Dallas and Athens.
In 1931 she moved to West Texas and worked as a receptionist for Tri-County Hospital. She married Keith B. Ward in 1933, a graduate of Texas Tech.
She quit working in 1935 to take care of their newborn son, Jack.
Keith was a master electrician and he and Alice opened an “electric shop” in Paducah. “He did all the electrical work in that little town,” Alice said.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the couple closed their shop. They traveled around south and west Texas “rebuilding the forts,” according to Alice.
Their second son, Keith B. Ward Jr., was born and the family began moving frequently, hitting spots from Texarkana to Mississippi to Tennessee.
She recalls the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. It remains an emotional event to her to this day.
“My oldest son was watching TV and brought the news to me,” Alice said with watery eyes.
The family moved back to Paducah to re-open the electric shop and bought a dairy farm.
“We lived there until we moved to Wichita Falls when the Sheppard Air Force Base opened up,” she said. Two years later, in 1961, her husband died.
She began working in a department store — in the alterations department — and worked there for 18 years.
A tornado leveled her home in 1979, she lost everything.
“With good insurance I rebuilt,” Alice said. Two years later a flash flood “washed her home away,” and she built her house a second time.
She moved to Athens soon after.
“My son called to tell me he was coming after me,” she said.
She began working for East Texas Medical Center in 1982 at the front desk. She worked there until she was 93 years old.
She now lives at South Place Nursing Center in Athens.
“I have been a resident for nearly five years, since I broke my leg,” Alice said.
She has many hobbies to fill her days.
“I do a lot of reading. I love poetry and I do two crosswords a day,” she said. “I visit my local friends here.”

Photos

Alice Coker Ward