Good Genes, God and Chocolate Cake!

A combined 394 years old, the Laird Sisters continue to be a force of nature

By Jim Muir

It’s always a unique, entertaining and interesting story to hear of an individual that lives a long, full life into their late 90s or even beyond to the 100-year-old mark. When considering the Laird sisters – Fanny, Mitzie, Mary and Wanda – multiply unique, entertaining and interesting by four.
The four sisters are the daughters of Joe and Mary Ann Laird, who raised five children in a single-level frame home located at 612 West Reed Street, in Benton, Illinois. It was the last house on the street, where West Reed intersects with North Du Quoin Street. Joe was a coal miner and Mary Ann was a homemaker. After marrying in 1919, Joe and Mary Ann had five children in rapid succession. James Fred, was born in 1920, Fanny May, was born in 1921, Mitzie, was born in 1924, Mary, was born in 1927 and the baby of the family, Wanda, was born in 1930.

James Fred was born deaf and, as was the custom in that era, he was sent to a school for the hearing-impaired in Jacksonville, Illinois. James Fred lived to be 89 years old and died in 2009.

The four sisters lived their lives in Benton, attending school and graduating from Benton High School, during or shortly after World War II. Here’s where the stories for Fanny, Mitzie, Mary and Wanda takes on all those adjectives (and several more) that were mentioned earlier.
First, and the most amazing aspect of this story, is that all four sisters are still alive. That’s a combined 394 years of living for the Laird sisters. Fanny is 103 and resides in a nursing facility in Kentucky, Mitzie, who is 100 years old, lives in Florissant, Missouri with her son, Mary, at age 97, lives by herself in the same house in rural Sesser, Illinois that she has called home for the past 76 years. And only a short distance down the country road, Wanda, who is the “youngster” of the four Laird sisters at age 94, also lives alone in the same house she has resided in for 75 years.

While Fanny’s health has deteriorated some in the past year, the other three sisters are bright, charming and, as the old-saying states, “sharp as a tack.”
One of the interesting and unique anecdotes about the two youngest sisters (Mary and Wanda) is that they married brothers, Tom and Walter Newbury, who both operated successful farming operations northeast of Sesser. Mary and Wanda have lived and raised their respective families, as the crow flies, about two miles apart for more than seven decades. And the fact that Mary and Tom Newbury had four children and Wanda and Walter Newbury had two children, means that there are literally dozens and dozens of double-cousins and double-second and third cousins that were created from the two Laird sisters meeting the two Newbury brothers back in the 1940s.
In an effort to tell the story of the Laird sisters, an interview was arranged with Mary and Wanda. Several family members attended the interview to listen to Mary and Wanda recall dates of births, deaths and weddings with uncanny accuracy from decades past. In all, there were children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren involved in the interview, making it a four-generation event. Mitzie was later interviewed by phone from St. Louis.

Family members pointed out that what the sisters don’t have stored in their sharp memory, they have documented in handwritten notes on calendars and in journals that have been kept through the decades.

As one family member stated: “If something newsworthy happened it’s written down. It might take a while to figure out which calendar or which volume its in, but if we look long enough, we can find it.”

Mary said she recalled her life in Benton growing up as “good, but we were very poor.” All the sisters attended Lincoln Grade School, a neighborhood school that was located only a few blocks from the Laird family home. All four sisters also attended Benton High School, located on East Main Street. All four walked to school every day. Mary said her dad worked at Orient No. 2 Mine, in West Frankfort, Illinois, but noted that during that era the mining industry was not considered steady employment during that era. She also remembered that her dad was working at Orient 2 when it was the site of one of the worst mining disasters in the nation. On December 21, 1951, 119 miners were killed when a methane-fueled explosion ripped through the mine. Joe Laird was on a different shift and was not at work that fateful night.

Mary described her family life growing up as “great” but also very mundane.

“Our big outing every week was going to church,” Mary recalled. “We were there every time the doors were open. We went on Sunday morning, Sunday night and again on Wednesday night. We never missed church.”

She said the family attended the Benton Church of God, which she believed was “located off of Bailey Lane to the south near the railroad tracks.”
As an illustration and life lesson that one contact can change a life, Mary related the sequence of events that led to her meeting her future husband, Tom Newbury, which of course, led to Wanda meeting Walter Newbury.

“There was a man at the church that was a manager at FS Grain, in Benton, and he was looking for a bookkeeper and he offered me a job,” she said. “I graduated high school on a Friday night and I started working at FS on Saturday morning.”

And since local farmers frequented FS Grain on a regular basis, it was there that she met her future husband, Tom Newbury. And seven months after that initial first date, the couple were married on August 21, 1948 standing in the front yard of the Laird residence at 612 West Reed Street, in Benton. From that union, Tom and Mary had four children, Mary Jane (Gee), who passed away two years ago, Tom, Jr., Janice (Page) and Janine (Kelley). Tom, Sr. and Mary were married for 62 years until his death in 2010 at the age of 86.

Tom, Jr. said his dad remained proud of that “front yard wedding” his entire life.

‘He used to talk about people that would spend thousands of dollars on a wedding and then the marriage wouldn’t last,” Tom, Jr. said. “He used to say, ‘they don’t have any sticking power. Then he would say, ‘after all the years…our front yard wedding is still holding.’”

Mary said she found great pride that her life had primarily consisted of raising and taking care of her family and helping on the farm. When posed with a question about regrets in her life, or doing things differently, Mary gave a poignant answer.

“I honestly don’t have any regrets at all,” she said. “I can’t think of one thing that I would do differently. I’ve lived a good and a full life.”

Actually, Mary accepting a job at FS didn’t change just two lives, it changed four. After Mary met Tom Newbury and began dating, it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out how Mary’s younger sister Wanda and Tom’s older brother Walter got together. Four months after Tom and Mary said their “I do’s” Walter and Wanda were married on December 25, 1948. So, within a matter of four months’ time in 1948, Mary and Wanda, after spending their entire lives on West Reed Street, in Benton, moved to rural Sesser and began life as the wives of busy farmers.

Wanda and Walter had three children, James Walter, who passed away shortly after birth, then David (1952) and Barb (1954) were born. Walter passed away in 2021 at the age of 98. At the time of his death, Wanda and Walter had been married for 73 years.

Wanda recalled that Walter made her a promise before marriage – a promise that he kept over and over through the decades.

“He told me that he would provide for our family and he would work hard and take care of us,” Wanda said. “And he did that his entire life.”

Wanda recalled a harrowing story about a fateful day on the farm when she feared for the lives of herself and her children, David and Barb. On April 5, 1958, a tornado originated in Perry County, traveled east and damaged and destroyed scores of homes in Sesser and then continued east toward the still-standing Horse Prairie Church. Walter and Wanda’s home was just a short distance east of the church. Walter was at a grain bin a few miles north of the home and saw the tornado approaching and actually saw a silo blow away, but didn’t have enough time to get back to the family residence. Wanda recalled in great detail and emotion, those few frantic minutes of that spring day nearly 70 years ago.

“I had just walked out the back door to feed the chickens and I saw the tornado approaching from the west,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I ran back in the house and grabbed my babies (David was six years old and Barb was three years old) and we made a run for the basement. Just as we got down the stairs, the entire house was just gone, it just blew away, there was nothing left.”

Wanda said she “cried out to God” as she headed down the basement stairs.

“I just prayed, ‘God take it all…but save me and these babies,” she said. “And I believe God was watching over us and protected us during that tornado.”

Almost 67 years later, David still remembers those moments.

“We (David and Barb) were standing in the front window and we saw the black cloud, but we didn’t know what it was and mom grabbed us and just as we got to the basement the house was just gone. I can still remember looking up and it was just pouring down rain on us. And I can remember some family members coming and pulling us out of the basement. They always talk about the noise that a tornado creates, I still remember that noise, it’s something you never forget.”

Wanda added that they had just had the house remodeled and the carpenters had finished the day before the tornado.

“We hadn’t even paid the carpenters or the lumber yard yet and it was all gone,” she said.

She said the family rebuilt at the same site in the house that she continues to live in today.

Since attending church had been such an integral part of both Mary’s and Wanda’s lives, they continued that practice when they made the move to rural Sesser, and since Horse Prairie Baptist Church was only a short distance away, that became the home church for both families through the decades. While neither Mary or Wanda are able to attend church now because of mobility issues, both still rely on their upbringing and emphasized that prayer and reading their bible is a daily practice.

“It’s the first thing I do in the morning, I read scriptures from the bible,” said Mary. “It’s the best way possible that I could start my day.”
Family members who attended the interview pointed out that Wanda began decades ago, at the request of her husband, reading the biblical account in Luke about the birth of Jesus.

“And I was able to read it again this year,” she said proudly, “so I am thankful for that.”
While Mary and Wanda both left Benton and still reside in Benton more than 75 years later, older sister Mitzie, also a Benton High School graduate (1943), got married and lived in various locations throughout the Midwest. She currently lives with her only son, Terry and his wife Keryl, in Florissant, Missouri. Mitzie, will turn 101 on June 5.

During a phone interview, Mitzie’s voice was strong and clear and she answered questions concisely and without hesitation.

The church the family attended also played an integral role in Mitzie’s life – it’s also where she met her husband.

“I met my husband Gene at church,” Mitzie recalled. “He was from West Frankfort and he was in the Army at the time. When he got out of the service we got married and moved to Paducah, Kentucky.”

Mitzie recalled that through the years her and Gene, and one son Terry, would live in Missouri and then moved to different locations in Indiana, including Kokomo, Hammond and Highland.

Mitzie’s life has not been without tragedy, her husband was killed in a car crash in 1984, when a young driver ran a red light and collided with her husband’s vehicle broadside at an intersection. Gene Harris was only 58 years old, and Mitzie never remarried.
Mitzie called it a “tremendous family blessing” that all four sisters had lived such long and healthy lives.

“We were all raised in a good home, with good parents that were good to us and siblings that loved each other,” Mitzie said. “We’ve all had good marriages and good children. None of our children have never been in any kind of trouble. All of us have been Christians and been active in church work and I think God has really blessed us.”

Mitzie said her health remains good and she is mobile enough to still walk “anywhere I need to go.”

“Sometimes I use a cane to help with my balance and sometimes I don’t,” she said. “Overall, to be 100 years old, I think I’m still in good health.”
Mitzie, just like Wanda and Mary, has attended church all her life and still reads her bible daily, providing a great example of the way they were raised and attended church regularly.

Echoing her sisters, Mitzie said, “I read my bible the first thing every morning.”
Mitzie, who has three grandchildren, said she still communicates with her three sisters regularly.

“I talk on the phone to all of them every week,” Mitzie said. “After all these years I still enjoy talking to them and we still have lots to talk about.”
Mary and Wanda both said they try to stay active so they can continue to get around. Mary has a stationary bike that she rides daily (at age 97) and Wanda has a small device that allows her to sit on the couch or in a chair and pedal and keep her legs active.

When asked about what she attributed her long and healthy life to, Mary gave a touching, but also a surprising and humorous answer.

“I was sickly as a child, I had bronchial trouble and I’ve dealt with that all my life, but I think growing up in a good Christian home is the reason we’ve all lived long lives. But I also think it had something to do with the chocolate cake.”

That answer certainly prompted an explanation about how chocolate cake played into their long lives.

“When we were growing up, my dad left for work at 4 a.m. every day and as soon as he went to work my mom would bake a chocolate cake,” Mary recalled. “When we got up, at 6 a.m. we would have hot chocolate cake right out of the oven, with hot tea. Looking at all the long lives we’ve lived…I believe there had to be something in that chocolate cake.”