By Meghan Cooke
mcooke@salisburypost.comWearing a long, black skirt and a white blouse, Willie Mae Graybill sat patiently as her hairdresser neatly arranged curlers in her hair Friday at Tate’s Hair Designers on Lane Street in Kannapolis.
That’s where she can be found every Friday morning.
“I remember when there was just one beauty shop in Kannapolis,” Willie said.
That’s no exaggeration. She really can.
On Aug. 22, Willie celebrated her 102nd birthday.
“She’s a feisty little thing,” said Pat Boone, who has been styling Willie’s hair since 1991. “Sometimes we have to run to keep up with her.”
At more than a century old, Willie is known among family and friends as a loving woman with a story to tell.
“I’ve always tried to live happy,” she said.
But life hasn’t always been fair, and it certainly wasn’t easy.
Days after her 18th birthday, Willie, a Wilkes County native, moved in with an aunt in Kannapolis so she could go to work.
“I came here on a Monday and went to work Tuesday night,” she said.
She became a spooler at Cannon Mills, where she would work for 44 years.
“I worked my hands as fast as I could,” she said.
Soon she was married and had two daughters and a son. But in 1938, when her son was only about 11 weeks old, Willie’s husband, Arnold Roberts, died suddenly, leaving her alone to support their three children.
“I was left with an infant baby and two little girls,” she said. “But I went back to work.”
She hired a girl to watch the children, and she worked as hard and as fast as she could, she said.
“I come through it,” she said. “You just have to fight.”
In 1940, she married Seldon Graybill, a preacher.
“It scared me,” she said with a quick smile. “I didn’t know how to be a preacher’s wife.”
But she adapted the best way she knew how.
“I’ll just be me,” she said. “That’s the way I lived. I guess I done all right.”
Graybill, who died in 1990, raised Willie’s children as if they were his own.
“He was a real good man,” she said.
Still wearing her wedding band, Willie sat in the living room of her home last week surrounded by her three children, Jim Roberts, 71, Navonia Dixon, 76, both of Kannapolis, and Myrtle Jean Aldridge, 79, of Rockwell.
They counted on their fingers, trying to add up Willie’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Eventually, they just threw up their hands and laughed.
The numbers don’t matter. Willie has enough love to go around.
Recalling stories from their youth, she and her children ó “all old men and women now,” Willie said ó laughed at each other in a playful banter that only close families can share.
They grinned as they explained that people often mistake Navonia and Myrtle Jean for Willie’s sisters rather than her daughters.
Myrtle Jean said strangers are shocked when they hear her refer to Willie as “Mom.”
“The mouths fly open, and they say, ‘Are you sure?'” she said. “I tell everybody I see how old she is.”
Jim said he and his sisters are proud of their mother.
Throughout her years, Willie has witnessed history firsthand. She remembers a little about World War I, including how her father and uncle had to register for the draft.
Two of her brothers served in the military during World War II, and one fought in Germany and received a Purple Heart after he was injured.
Times have changed, she said.
“Oh honey, you see changes,” she said. “Everything changed.”
Willie remembers a simpler way of life, but one of the biggest changes she’s noticed has nothing to do with the way people dress or new technology.
“People don’t cook like they used to,” she said. “It’s odd to me that some people don’t eat breakfast.”
She said her mother cooked three times a day.
“My mother did, too,” Jim said, pointing to Willie.
Willie is known for her cooking. Cream gravy and biscuits are her specialty, according to her family.
“She feeds everybody that comes in here,” Myrtle Jean said.
When she’s not cooking, Willie likes to go shopping, especially at the dollar store. She still attends Oak Grove Freewill Baptist Church in China Grove, the church her second husband organized. Willie, who is the only charter member still alive, even goes twice on Sundays.
Despite her age, Willie maintains her independence. A neighbor stays with her at night, but she lives in her home in Kannapolis by herself.
“He wants me to move in with him,” Willie said, pointing to her son.
Willie refuses. She’s lived in her home since the 1950s ó more than half of her life.
“I don’t ask them for nothing,” she said. “They say I’m stubborn.”
Sometimes she uses a walker or a sturdy arm to lean on, but Willie is still going strong.
“As far as I know, I’m in good health,” she said.
She’s fallen a few times, breaking her wrist once, and her hearing isn’t what it used to be.
“She’s in better health than three of her young’uns,” her son said, laughing.
Maybe it’s in her blood. She had an aunt who died just short of her 105th birthday.
Willie admitted that sometimes she feels her age.
“It gets hard sometimes,” she said. “You get tired all over.”
Although she wishes she had saved more money for retirement, Willie said she doesn’t have any regrets about her life.
“I’ve had to work hard,” she said.
Willie’s longevity and strength beg one question: What’s her secret?
“I don’t know,” she said in a soft whisper as she shook her head. “I’ve always tried to do the right thing, but I don’t question the Lord.”
Her advice on life is simple.
“Just try to live a Christian life, and live as long as the good Lord wants you to.”