Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1889-05-08
QUEER OLD WOMAN,
The Idiosyncrasy or Aunt Nancy Brown
who Is 100 Years Old,

who Is 100 Years Old.
Over on Browns Hill. in the eastern
suburbs Of the city, in little log cot
tage. lives Aunt Nancy Brown. Aunt
Nancy, as her neighbors call her, is
one hundred years old. In this samo
little log cottage Aunt Nancy has lived
for almost tifty-tivc years, and, like its
owner, the little cottage is beginning
to look very old. Standing in the door
of this cottage by day, smoke can be
seen curling slowly upward from Il
dozen great furnace stacks; the shriel1-
Ing OF the whistles and the rumble and
roar OF countless locomotives can be
heard, and ut night electric lights and
the glare Of furnaces and coke ovens
light up the heavens; but Aunt Nancy
has never seen q railroad train or a
furnace. For fifteen years she has not
oeen four blocks from her home. A
dummy railroad to one of the parks
passes the house only block away,
and occasionally she will walk to the
door and see Il train pass but she can
not be induced to go any nearer. In all
the one hundred years of her existence
she has never been in a carriage, or
even buggy. Aunt Nancy owns some
valuable property, and has an income
OF several thousand year, but she
lives in the style of three-quarters of
century ago. She has never worn a
dress made OF finer fabric than calico,
and has never engaged the services of
a dressmaker. Nine yards of calico is
all she will put into Il dress, declaring
that more than that quantity would be
a waste Of material
Mrs. Brown was born in South Caro-
lima on March 9, 1889. She married
when about twenty years of age. and
soon aftcrward removed with her hus-
band to Georgia. About tifty-Gve Years
ago they came to Alabama and settled
at the place where she now lives. Her
husband secured 100 acres Of land from
the Government by homestead entry.
When the city of Birmingham was
founded b. the Elyton Land Company
in 1870, Mrs. Brown sold all the land
except four acres to that company.
Her husband had then been dead
several years, and her family consisted
OF maiden daughter and a murried
son, who is now nearly seventy years
of age. After a few years, when
property became valuable. Mrs. Brown
sold several lots, and with the money
built houses on the lots which she re-
tanned. From these houses she derives
an income Of several Thousand dollars
year. She would not consent to give
up the old log cabin, and there she still
lives with her maiden daughter. Mrs.
Brown can not read. bat she can count
money, and every month she calls on
tenants aud collects her rents. She
can not understand the modern system
of banking, and has no faith in banks.
All her money she keeps in the house
in purses knit by her own hands.
La the shed room of the little cottage
there is an old-fashioncd spinning
wheel, and occasionally Aunt Nancy
spins a brooch, as she says, to remind
her OF old times.
She can not be induced TO visit the
great industtial city which has grown
up whore only few years ago she saw
tangled woods and corn fields. She
has bcon told Of the wonderful inven-
tions Of Morse and Edison, but she re-
fuses to believe the story. Some years
ago her son bought a sewing machine
and presented it to her, but she refused
to touch it. She says she lived hap
PLY mnny years without knowing any
thing about these modern inventions,
and she docs not care to see them now.
She will noteve allow ~ cooking stove
in the house. Aunt Nancy says she
wants to live and die as people did in
thegood old times of long ago. She Is
In excellent health, and her eyesight,
hearing and memory are unmpaireJ.
birmingham Gala. Letter.