By now she had traveled by auto, train, bus, ship or jet to every one of the 50 states, to Canada, Europe, South America, the Carribbean, and the Middle East. Her favorite trips were two excursions to Israel. On her last trip there she was 99. As part of the tour, in order to see the places where the Savior had lived and taught, she had to walk a mile or two on several occasions. When asked how she was able to do the strenuous walking, she said she just did it a step at a time, always believing that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." While in Egypt, she wanted to ride a camel, so she approached the camel driver and asked him how much. He replied that there was no charge to get up on the camel. So he made the camel kneel down and helped her climb up into the saddle. After plodding around for a while she decided she had had enough and asked him to get the camel to lie down again. "Oh," he said, "that will cost you $7.50." She ended up having to pay to get off the camel, but she got more than $7.50 worth of fun out of telling the story to everyone about how the camel driver got the best of her! On her 100th birthday, she was featured in the Jacksonvile Times-Union and when the reporter showed up at her house to interview her, she baked cookies for him. The day after the article appeared, she got a call from her first cousin, Elizabeth, whom she had not heard from in 50 years. "Eva," she exclaimed, "I thought you were dead!" Her cousin was 102. They arranged to meet and reminisce about old times. When the reporter got wind of it, he came to their reunion and eavesdropped enough to write a second article. One of the things that amazed people about Eva on that 100th birthday was that she could still do an odd exercise she thought up herself, which she called, "Kicking myself in the rear end." Her knees were so flexible that she could kick backwards from a standing position and actually touch her derriere with the soles of her shoes (with a resounding "slap, slap") on each kick. Everybody who saw her do this had to catch it on their video cameras to show the folks back home. Because the old neighborhood was changing and was no longer safe, she had decorative bars placed on her doors and windows. In spite of this, her house was robbed seven times. In 1991, she returned from a great-granddaughter's wedding to find the front door broken down. Apparently looking for valuables, the burglars had removed all the drawers of her bedroom furniture and dumped the contents in a pile in the middle of the floor. When asked if she was depressed when she came home and discovered this mess, she laughed and said, "No, I got to work right away and picked things up." Not one to be easily discouraged, she used it as an opportunity to reorganize her dresser drawers! Her children were now seriously concerned for her safety. At the age of 100, they persuaded her to give up her home and move to a lovely retirement facility, Riverside Presbyterian House, known for its caring Christian staff. Her apartment soon became known as the "prayer room." No visitor left without feeling cheered up and reassured that God loved him or her. She had a remarkable gift for communicating to every individual, no matter how forlorn, that they were special because they were created in His image. Eva said she thought God had extended her life so that she could tell more people about Him. |
