100 years of hard work

Friday, Jan. 25, 2008

She was about 5 seeing ‘‘men crying, tears running down their faces, children begging for a crust of bread or a little cup of soup,” she said. ‘‘We never had a dime, never had a nickel.”

Turning 100 years old Jan. 13, the now blind Newburg resident has seen a lot of life.

Raising three children, one stepdaughter and bringing up four of her grandchildren, Michael was never one to shy away from hard work.

It’s that trait for which she credits her long and health-filled life.

‘‘No parties. I never had a drop of whiskey in my life,” Michael said. ‘‘I was up early every day and worked hard.”

Michael worked in a five and dime store in Northwest Washington, D.C., when she was only 13.

‘‘Worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for a dollar a day,” she laughed.

Her family relocated to Waterbury, Conn., when her father, John Edward Greene found work.

He was killed on his job, falling four stories off a building, Michael said.

After his death, the family moved back to the area to bury him at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suitland, and Michael met her husband, Jerome Michael, a World War I veteran who was in the newspaper business.

The couple was married Feb. 17, 1928, and Michael became the stepmother of Jerome Michael’s daughter, Elsie, whose mother had died of tuberculosis.

Soon, Jerome Jr., Mary Elizabeth and Helen would join the Michael brood.

‘‘The doctor said [Helen] wouldn’t live long so I should just take her home,” Michael recalled. ‘‘She was less than five pounds. But she’s had eight children and 15 grandchildren.”

Jerome Jr. lives in La Plata and took his mother out for dinner for her birthday. Mary Elizabeth lives in Newburg and talks to her mother every day by phone, while Helen, who lives across the Potomac River in King George, Va., visits every other Saturday.

Michael is the glue that holds the family together.

‘‘She’s a rock,” said Kay St. Clair, Michael’s granddaughter who works near Michael’s waterfront bungalow at Dr. Thomas L. Higdon Elementary School and visits at least once a week. ‘‘She’s held us all together.”

St. Clair, who is Jerome Jr.’s daughter, said her grandmother’s work ethic couldn’t help but influence her heirs. ‘‘She was always working, always looking for a way to earn money,” she said.

Michael started Charles County’s first pasteurized dairy in the 1940s until a drought dried up the grazing land for her cows.

She worked seven nights a week in a Newburg country store while working days in Dahlgren — a job she interviewed for while wearing stained tobacco-harvesting coveralls.

She received the phone call to come to the interview right away, even though she was in the middle of taking care of her crops.

‘‘They said, ‘Come like you are,’ and I did,” Michael laughed. ‘‘Mr. Franklin, the man who was doing the hiring, took one look at me and said anyone who would work like that he wanted to work for him.

‘‘I was a bookkeeper, I was raising chickens, turkeys, tobacco,” she said. ‘‘Anything I could do to make a dollar.”

Not to mention her unofficial job.

‘‘They called me the mayor of Morgantown,” Michael said. ‘‘Any information they needed, they always come to me.”

Now, 100 years have passed and after receiving kudos not only from Willard Scott on ‘‘The Today Show” but also from Pope Benedict XVI (Michael belongs to Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Issue), Michael is looking forward to taking it easy.

‘‘I did my share of working,” she said. ‘‘So now I think I ought stop and rest.”

Yet she’s already is planning ahead to next year.

‘‘I’m not what I was,” Michael said. ‘‘But come back next year. I’ll be 101. I’ll be right here.”