OCEAN PINES, Md. - Vivian Mumford, a woman from Ocean Pines, turned 101 years old last Friday.
Mumford was born on Aug. 4, 1922 in Pittsville, but at that time it was a town called Friendship. She says it had crops, a cow, and a few chickens, and remembers picking strawberries there fondly.
“I loved it because I didn’t have to work on it!” she said.
She went to high school in Friendship, where she was an honor student and eventually crowned May Queen. Though she received a partial scholarship to college, her family could not afford the difference.
“Instead, I worked at Woolworth's dime store. That was my first job,” she said. “And then I worked at JCPenney's and Benjamin’s. I worked all over the place.”
She is thrilled to talk about the time she met her late husband, named Jack.
“We met in Ocean City, at the Pier Club,” she said. “I was there with some friends that I worked with, and I was dancing with another fella and he cut in,” Mumford said. “I found out later he worked in the dime store across from Woolworth’s called McCrory’s.”
Jack fought in World War II and started a family once he returned home. Vivian now has four children, four grandchildren, and possibly four great grandchildren. Jack passed away in 2006.
Mumford moved in to a senior care facility eight years ago, at age 93, but moved back in with her daughter, Susan Blanton, four years after that. Blanton explains what it was like to be Mumford's daughter.
“She didn’t make us do too much around the house, because we couldn’t do it to suit her,” Blanton said with a laugh. “But everyone always thought my mother was the nicest and the prettiest.”
Even though Blanton is the one taking care of her mother instead of the other way around, she says Mumford still does plenty for herself.
“She can still take care of herself. She does her own laundry and makes the bed. She does let me cook, because she can’t really remember recipes,” Blanton said.
“She doesn’t want me to turn the stove on, that’s what it is!” Mumford added. “But she does the cooking and I eat it – whatever it is.”
Now, Mumford enjoys reading and taking many trips to the local library.
“I like books that were written back in the time when there were dukes and princes and things like that, like ‘Gone with the Wind.’ And I've read a lot of Nicholas Sparks books,” Mumford said. Some of his books tend to frustrate her though...
“He wrote these two books [in a series] and this guy was so much in love with this girl, and then she died. If you want to read a book about how somebody mourned, that will really hurt you,” Mumford said. “I said I’d never read another one of his books. He killed that girl! But anyway, I have read many more of them.”
The Ocean Pines Association says that Mumford celebrated her birthday at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club Friday with family and friends. She said the milestone “just means I’m getting older.”
She gave the following advice on how she has lived so long:
“Don’t smoke, don’t drink, but dance all you want.”
“Just be yourself,” she said, “and be honest.”