Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-06
NEVER WORRIED, SHE
ENJOYS RIPE OLD AGE
ohio Woman's Philosophy Proved by
Eighty=eight Years of Ex-
perience

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 5.-1f you
would live long and be blessed with
health lust have a good time and don't
worry about little things, is the advice
of Mary Wharton, So years old, who for
the last forty years has lived in Green
Lawn avenue alone, except for col
ored woman servant whom she brought
up from childhood and whom she has
adopted.
Mary Wharton has had good time
She danced with Tod and Dennison, the
war governors. and governors that pre-
ceded them. Excepting the widow OF
Governor Dennison, formerly Miss
Anna Eliza Nell, now in extremely
feeble health in her apartments at the
Cumberland, Mary Wharton is prob
ably the only person living who danced
in the state house during the brilliant
ceremonies attending its first dedica-
tion.
Mary Wharton never forgot to have Il
good time When she travelled, away
back in the thirties, long days and
nights in stage coach to school in Steu-
benville and in Chester county, Pa,
she didn't forget to laugh at the wild
incidents of the road. She played
pranks in the school room; she teased
the teacher. When other girls were
worrying over tedious lessons Mary
Wharton was skimming lightly. She
refused to take the world seriously. She
insisted on having a good time.
Now, at S5, Mary Wharton can bark
back to the time when she was 2. She
is bright and active. Her faculties are
alert. She reads without glasses and
hears as well as when she was 21.
Left Wealthy by Father
And she says she never followed any
1s.,k, irtrsk
took the world as it came, laughing at
it's turns, never taking it too seriously.
Her laugh now shows she is none too
serious, echoing back as it does through
the years.
The people who trudged and labored
fighting with the world when Mary
Wharton laughed, are now long in their
graves. And Mary Wharton believes
she is going to live much longer.
Unquestionably she is one of the
oldest characters in the state. Left
with wealth by her father, who owned
nearly a thousand acres of land just
at the southwestern borders of the city,
including what is now Green Lawn
cemetery, Mary Wharton in the old
days was the belle of society. She
wore rich gowns and spent money law
ishly. AS time went on an uncle got
most of her land away from her and
she is now left with about thirty acres
and the old homestead. This is encum
bered by a debt arising from a loan
of $4,000 made to her in 1888 by
wealthy Columbus capitalist, who now
is said to be anxious to get hold of the
whole Wharton property to satisfy his
claim. This man charged interest at
the rate of s per cent.
In this homestead Mary Wharton has
lived her whole life of eighty-eigh
years, excepting four years during
which she lived in Nashville, Tenn.
She sleeps now in the same room in
which her father and mother died. She
remembers clearly all the great incl
dents of the greater part Of the last
century and has them at her tongues
end.
In the early days she knew Edwin
M. stanton, the "war secretary" In
fact she was his protege while, as girl
in her early teens, she attended the old
boarding school of Miss Beatty at
Steubenville. She didn't like Stanton.
He was too strict with her, too 'bossy,"
as she says now.
Promoted First Levee
She remembers the time when Henry
Clay passed through Columbus, and
went out to visit the homestead, then
one of the picturesque places of the city.
Mary Wharton was less than II years
old when Clay came. HE was tall,
and severe" she says, "and
stately, with piercing eyes and sharp
features" Webster she remembers
having seen, but forgets the impression
he made on her.
To the credit of Mary Wharton can
be given the presence of the levee along
the Scioto river, for 1t was she who
went in person to the legislature and
'1obbied" the levee bill through. She
was then past middle age.
II met members of the legislature
whom / knew when I was a girl and
took them out here in carriages and
showed them how badly the levee was
needed she said. And those were
times when women had very little to
say in politics.
1t was she who gave to the country
the right of way through her land to
construct Green Lawn avenue and
nothing for that right.
The house where she has lived so
long is built of bricks carried in OK
carts all the way from Chillicothe in
1923. Tt is finished with black walnut,
now of immense value. The old fash
ioned fire places can still be seen. The
barn adjoining is built of black wal
nut.
The wealthy man in Columbus who
is thought to want the Wharton farm
tells the aged woman he will pay for
her keep in hotel the rest of her life
for certain considerations.
"Never!" says Mary Wharton. "I'll
stay here till die"