Centenarian celebrates life with her family

Annie Bell Turner has turned 100, and she reflected on her life at the home off Toytown Road where she lives with her adoptive daughter, Toni Hawkins, and her husband, Frank.

Turner was born July 13, 1909, one of six children of Jessie and Lovie Richardson Blair (two brothers and three sisters).

Her father was a railroad man, and as with many families, Turner’s life was one of work.

The family worked the fields, where they grew wheat, corn and tobacco, taking goods to Lynchburg by horse-drawn wagon. They baked their own bread and grew gardens.

Turner attended what was known as the Blair School, not far from her home, which had about 30 students of all ages.

She still recalls images of Amherst County life.

“I can remember when that hardware store sold wagons,” she recalled of what is still Hill Hardware Corp. downtown on South Main Street.

Her parents bought their first car in 1925, a Chevrolet.

“I will never forget that,” she recalled.

When she was 14, her mother went to work as a cook in Lynchburg for “a private family,” as such arrangements were known.

When Turner was 16, she got a job working for a family at Sweet Briar for $5 per week.

She sent her mother $7 every two weeks, “so that didn’t leave me but a little,” she recalled. Turner went home every fourth Saturday, primarily because the bus to Amherst cost more than she could afford –– $.25 one way, $.50 round trip.

She married Silas Rose in 1929 and moved to Amherst. He also farmed, growing tobacco, wheat and corn.

“I raised chickens, he didn’t make much money,” Turner recalled. She also churned butter.

“I’d take chickens, eggs, butter and go buy what I had to have in the house,” such as sugar, coffee, tea and soap. They also butchered hogs.

The couple had two sons, Van Lee Rose, who died in 1986, and O’Neil Rose, who is also deceased.

Her husband died in 1965, and in 1967, she remarried, to Joseph Turner, who died in 1989.

Turner has 14 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and 14 great-great-grandchildren.

About 150 people attended a surprise party for her last Saturday at the Clifford Ruritan club.