Alma Gaffney at her 100th birthday celebration
Bill Colvard | The Tribune
“It’s been a journey,” said Alma Gaffney at her 100th birthday celebration on Sept.12. She had turned 100 two days before on Thursday, Sept. 12.
Family and friends were joined by an Elkin Fire Department truck, two Elkin Police Department cruisers, a Surry Sheriff’s Department car, and two vehicles from Elkin Rescue Squad, which all turned on their lights and hit the sirens as they paraded past Parkwood Place Independent Living where Gaffney lives.
Gaffney, known almost universally as Miss Alma, greeted her guests from a social distance as they drove through Parkwood’s porte cochère. Her friends and family remained in their vehicles to chat with Miss Alma, who was adorned with a beauty queen sash that read, “100 and Fabulous” and a jeweled pink tiara, regally positioned on a throne fashioned from a wheelchair with sparkly streamers and pink netting.
When asked the secret to having a long life, Gaffney quickly points out that she has enjoyed not only a long life, but a happy one as well.
“Never smoking and never drinking helped,” she smiled. “I had a happy life with my parents, I was raised by good parents and lived in the country where they taught us good things.”
I played the organ and the piano in church, “Gaffney continued. “I taught Sunday School, I have two sons who are both here, five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. They’re everywhere now, but I was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina. We came to Elkin in 1985, exactly 35 years ago. We moved here on my birthday.”
One of Gaffney’s guests, Brenda Reece Austen, was one of Gaffney’s Sunday school pupils at Cramerton First Baptist Church when she was in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Austen, who is now 79 years old, said, “I have never met anybody that has anything bad to say about Miss Alma. She mentored so many of us girls. When I think of the persons in my life who have influenced my life the most, I think of Miss Alma.”
David Gaffney, one of Miss Alma’s sons, said, “My mother has been through some fairly severe medical experiences, and she never once complained. She never has a negative comment about life. She has been a strong role model.”
“She loves this place,” he said about Parkwood, where his mother moved his his father passed away in 1993. “She loves this place, and she loves this town.”