Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1909-02-13
HALE and HEARTY IN Her
NINETY-FIFTh YEAR.
/ A SHENANDOAH COUNTY NONAGENAR-
IAN WHO Is STILL YOUNG.

|
German School House century ago,
cabin almost hidden in g woods thai
skirts Mil Creek, near Mt. Clifton,
they ale going to have a party some
| day this week.
1t will be birthday party, delayed
several days on account OF the weather,
but notable one nevertheless. sup
pose a candle was placed on each mile
post between winchester and Staun-
! ton, there would not be enough by one
to mark the span of years traversed
| by Christina Shown, in whose honor
the party will be given.
The neighbors call her Aunt Tee
ney," and Aunt Teeney, she was back
yonder in the years when interneclne
strife almost dismenbered a nation.
Think OF it. For fifty-six years she
has lived in the hut, where three quar-
ters of century ago, she was taught
the three Rs by pedagogue' who
hailed his visitors with "Sprachen
Sic Deutch."
IL was only two weeks after Old
Hickory had sllenced the guns OF the|
British soldiery at New Orleans, and
sixteen days before the Treaty of
Ghenthad sealed forever the supremacy
of the United Stated on the North
American continent, that Aunt Teeney
make her advent at Schaffertown, a
small settlement in Ashby district,
within couple of miles Of where she
now lives.
She has never lived beyond the con-
fines Of the neighbOrhoOd Of her ma
tiyity, and the world to her is bounded |
on the South by Harrisonburg, on
the North by Woodstock, the East
by Luray and the West by the huckle-
berry ridges of the North Mountain,
/, which loom up few miles beyond the
trellised gate which opens to her
cabin.
A remarkably we'll preserved woman,
with mind as bright and clear as the
proverbial wedding bell, Teeney Shown
paints word pictures of the good old
days" in the inimitable patois OF the
earlier settlers, and they are veritable
travelogues through the history of the
County. Her story is woven OF the
warp and woof of romance and TRACE
DIV, the earlier love recitals being mix
ed with The long ago sacrifices made on
some battlefield
Hers was not the life OF luxurious
ease, and social am mites are to her
as a closed book, but listen you saw
in recent dispatches where, IN the
Capitol city, bejewelled women, dress
ed decolette, drank toasts to ancestors
who wore the Continental uniform.
Truth is, some of these maids and
matrons had as little of the blood OF a
Revolutionary soldier in their veins
as there are corpuscles of an ichthyo-
saurus in pole cat. This little two
room log cabin, though, shelters a
woman through whose arteries course
the blood of the soldiers Of four Amer
lean wars. and either ancestor or de-
crndent saw the sun go down on Corn
wallis at Yorktown, carried a flint
lock i'm TIE precarious days of lSl2,
braved the fevered swampS with Scott
[ in Mex co or lad down his arms with
Lee at Appom t OK.
Her, va, Il ,t-enuou, ife and she
te Is of harvests If bvgone years
when she kept apace with the men
vie ding the ,lckle in the grain. She
tells to + he day when she did other
nanua no. and II the rails she
mau ed snrn the be- utiful FIRMS OF
Ashbv district were being cary from
the virgin woods. She can tell you Of
the ittlp incidents which add spice
and ze>t to life and OF occurrences lost,
save IN ner N mory, which interested
the associat IF four >crre y~ar> ago,
To her the ~ of the M-Nicau war
are rs o yesI.' day, and tine -ickie aud
fail we're TO her The newest me hods OF
h .rvesting aud threshing the 4rain
when ninety-nine per cent. IF tho-e
who read this we're yet unborn.
Innoculated with the frugality OF be
German ancestors, che has preserved
kitchen utensils over century old,
and still IN nse The same coffee
mill which did service when Van Buren
took up the mantle of the Iron Man OF
the hermitage, still grinds the Java
for the morning cup.
Now. you who eschew the weed that
made Sir Walter famous, note this,
and note it well. Eighty-slx years
ago TeAney Shown began TO smoke.
She was only nine then, but phthlsic
was the cause of the beginning OF the
pipe. Constantly since that time she
| na~ hepb tne hre puthi's 4" o."
stone pipe, consuming as she says two
"pokes" week. A calculation shows
that oser three quart RS OF ton oi
tobacco has been reduced to ashes In
the pipe OF the nonsgenarian and vel
she va, born when Edgar Allen Poe
was only lad OF six, and still lives,
de.piie the deleterious effects OF nico-
tire.
She has never ridden on railroad
t. ain, seen an automobile, nor heard
photograph, and the telephone is as
: much of mystery TO her as seismic
| disturbances are to Australian bush
men. withsl, she is happy and con
tented. the realization OF inventors