Helen Tompkins celebrates her 99th birthday

By Editor | August 11, 2010 |

When 99-year-old Helen Tompkins consented to an interview, she said she could not do it on a Tuesday, because that's when she always goes to a nursing home to sing for the residents.
Within a few minutes of meeting her, this amazing lady’s statement seemed not only a possibility, but a not-surprising probability.
She easily recalls dates, events, and people of long ago, looking to her daughter-in-law, Georgianne Tompkins, only rarely to offer a comment, to clarify or add information to a statement.
Meet Helen Tompkins, who just recently was honored at her 99th birthday party at the Pleasant Mound Community Center.
In the Beginning
“I was born in Talmalco Township, “ Helen said. “Can you give her a description of the place (house) where I was born?,” she asked her daughter-in-law.
Well informed, she said, “They are building a new house there now,” and went on to say who had bought the property and also who lived on the hill.
Helen’s address is Smithboro, but as she lives just outside the Fayette County line, she is considered a close neighbor.
“When I was born, my Grandma and Grandpa Reavis lived there, then my aunt Roxie and uncle “Lefe” Reavis lived there. (Lefe and Roxie were the parents of the late Doug Reavis.)
When asked about her birth date, she said, “Well, that’s where they flubbed up at the Bond County Courthouse. I think years ago, the parents used to leave the date of the birth and the names to the doctor, because he had to go to town in the horse and buggy.”
There seemed to have been some confusion about the birth date entries of Helen and another girl, Mabel (Riedermann) Britt, with three weeks difference between the dates.
“Mabel said to me, ‘Helen, take the youngest date,’ but I said, ‘I’m going to take the date my mother told me. I was born on the day before Easter, the 15th day of April in 1911,” she said. said.
“I had five sisters and two brothers,” she said. “I was the oldest one, and did a lot of babysitting and washed cotton diapers. We didn’t have anything else, back then,” she said laughing.
“I was 6 years old when we moved to Pleasant Mound, so I had to start to school. I would have had so far to have gone there (Tamalco). My mother was originally a Pahlmann, German descent. There was a John Henry Pahlmann the first, a John Henry Pahlmann, the second, a John Henry Pahlmann the third, and the last I had any record of was in St. Louis. I also had an uncle named Cooperider, who was an engineer on the railroad,” she said.
Childhood Memories of Home
“We had chickens and a few cows. We had our own milk, and we didn’t have a (milk) separator like a lot of people did,” she said. “Of course, we had a garden.
“My dad had one of those old Model T Fords. We used to go places in that where you would have to have kerosene lights. You would have to crank them (Model T’s) by hand. A lot of people would get their arms broke cranking the motor. I know of some that did.”
• On muddy country roads – “Oh my gosh, a lot of the country places had two roads that you could enter,” she said. “They did down here on the hill and on the Mulberry-Keyesport road.
“And the horses used to get scared of the noises of the motors. I remember one time when my grandpa and grandma lived at Mulberry Grove and we were going up there. Dad would get out and hold his horses and he said, ‘Things like that (cars) shouldn’t be allowed on these roads anyway.”
• Home Life – Helen said her dad farmed with horses, but she never had to help with the farming, because she was busy helping her mother.
“We baked bread, and we used to have that everlasting yeast,” she said. “You revive it with yeast foam, and keep it going all the time. I guess we hung it in the well, because we didn’t have no other refrigeration then,” she said, laughing.
“My in-laws had an open well and we lived close to them. I was always fearful for maybe falling in, so they put a top on it, but I wondered if maybe someone would forget to put the top down.
“If some of us got sick, someone would have to go get the doctor,” she said. “He would come as far as the slab came, I mean the concrete road, and then someone would pick him up there. We lived close to the Kaskaskia River, lived quite a ways out in the country, near Pittsburgh. My dad was a trader, he traded stock.”
Her mother canned a lot. “That was the only way you could preserve it,” she said. “Sometimes, she cooked the sausage a little bit first, and you would pour the grease on top of it before you sealed it up.
“And those zinc-like lids, I can remember my mother tapping them around the edge to be sure they sealed. We had those ring rubbers.”
“We ate a mostly potatoes and gravy and homemade biscuits. That’s the reason I think that I don’t care too much for gravy now. Mother made pies and cobblers some, but not much,” she said.
She remembered her mother washing clothes on a washboard. “We had a boiler and boiled the clothes. We had to have heat for that in the cook stove, even in the summer. We didn’t change clothes then like we do now,” she said.
• School – “I had a school picture taken and my mom put my hair up in rags, so I would have long curls. They brought the picture to school and I thought I saw a spot on my eye, so I took a rubber eraser and rubbed it a little bit. It ruined the picture, and Mom was so aggravated. I don’t blame her; she should have given me a spanking.”
“I went through high school and graduated from Mulberry Grove,” she said. “I went to our last reunion (alumni banquet) and got that, she said, pointing to a colorful, bright and shiny centerpiece on her kitchen table. “I graduated in 1930 and I was 19.” She wore her class ring to the alumni banquet and put it on during the interview.
• After graduation – She stayed at home and helped her mother for a while. “I also worked at housecleaning, and (until recently) I’d still get down on my hands and knees to scrub my floor.”
• Marriage – “My husband’s name was Claude, and his nickname was “Toodleman.” I was 19 and we met at a picnic, an ice cream social. We courted for a while.
“I was married in a blue dress. We used to have a rhyme, we said, ‘Marry in black, you’ll wish yourself back, marry in blue, you’ll always be true.’ We were just married at a preacher’s house, nothing extravagant,” she said.
“It was a double wedding. The other couple was Eunice and Dugan Tompkins. Then, my mother and cousins and sisters had supper for us when we got back. It was Nov. 19, 1934,” she said.
“When we first got married, we lived on a bluff over the Kaskaskia River by Pittsburgh. We rented the house from the Wegers.
“We also lived with his parents for a while, then we built a three-room house, through the field from their house,” she said. “We had animals, cows, and dogs and rabbits.”
“We had five children, four boys and a girl, she said. “There’s Donald (Jake), Robert (Bob), Neil (Newt), Maxine (Stewart) and the youngest, Maurice Lee (Shorty).”
She recalled breaking her ankle. “I went to the spring to get water. I had the three boys, That’s when we lived in the three-room house. It was in February, and the frost was on the ground and I slipped. I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl to the house. The kids were in the house and Jake was the oldest.
“So I sent him over to Grandpa’s. They all came over and they got old Doc Brown. He said he would put it in a cast. The poor old man only had two casts.
“Some other lady had broke hers, so I had to use a man’s cast. I’ve got such short legs anyway and it was a heavy metal cast. I had to wear ot for six weeks and it was pretty weak for quite some time, but it healed,” Helen said.
“After that, they put a pump outside, up by the house. I always wished for a pump inside the house, but I never did get it,” she said.
“We milked cows for years, and always helped clean up the milking parlor. Washing those milkers were something else. I had to have a stool to step on to pour the milk in the tank. We didn’t have running water, but we had a windmill out here,” she said.
Life of Service
Canning, gardening and quilting were her hobbies, which also benefited others.
“I used to quilt, when I could see, when I had my eyes, as I say,” she said. Georgianne said that her mother-in-law had made 60 quilt blocks, a dozen for each one of the grandchildren.
“We used to meet every Tuesday and make quilts (to benefit) the Seagrave Cemetery,” Helen said. “We would rent the American Legion building and have yard sales, and what money we made, we would give to the cemetery.”
She was active in the parent-teachers organization, and “I was a 4-H leader with Dorothy Chasey,” she said. “The boys showed hogs at the fairs. They would start out in July and get home the first of August, in time to go to school.”
The Move to Ramsey … and Electricity
Helen didn’t electricity until 1947, when they moved to Ramsey.
“Claude’s dad had a Delco with batteries in their house that provided lights and enough to do your washing, and that was about it. We never did have that. She (mother-in-law) had a hatchery in the basement and raised chickens,” Helen said.
“We moved to Ramsey in 1947 and lived there for five years. There are a lot of good people in Ramsey.
That was the first time I had electricity. We got a television up there and put the antenna up in 1950. The lightening struck the antenna and put the TV out. It didn’t harm anybody,” Helen said. Georgianne recalled that her in-laws’ TV was black and white, with a round, 12-inch screen.
“We used to go to Harry and Nora Hunter’s before we got ours,” Helen said.
Helen and her husband used to fly a lot, when their son, Maurice Lee (Shorty), was a pilot. “My flying days are over,” Helen said.
Their trips included Texas, California, Colorado. “We flew to Vegas and saw the Hoover Dam. We also went on a cruise one time and went under the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge and around Alcatraz,” Helen said.
They moved back from Ramsey 1952 and built their present house in 1959.
Today
Helen remained in their home after Claude’s death. Jake and Georgianne Tompkins live just a short distance away.
• Simple enjoyments – “I got some raisin bread the other day; I love that stuff.”
“I always had a fascination for windmills and even had one put on my tombstone. They said, ‘Where do you want it?’ and I said close to the barn,” she said.
She doesn’t get down on her hands and knees to scrub her floor anymore.
“I’ve got a lady who comes and cleans. The kids also come sometimes and do things. I’ve got a wonderful family,” she said. “Lots of children and grandchildren, and I’ve even lost count of them.”
She enjoys attending the alumni banquet every year. She believes that she is the only one left from her class of 12. She was the oldest one attending this year.
She and her sister, Cleta Watson of Greenville, are the only ones left of her siblings. Helen was the oldest, and Cleta was the youngest.
She goes to the United Methodist Church and to the United Methodist Women meetings every month. She used to teach Sunday school and led the singing in church.
She goes to Helia Nursing Home in Greenville every Tuesday and sings for the residents, while Georgianne also sings and plays the piano. “She sings pretty good,” Georgianne said.
Her health problems seem to be minimal, and she is tolerating her failing eyesight as an inconvenience as she goes about enjoying a life that seems amazingly active for a 99-year-old lady, doing things such as visiting “the elderly” in nursing homes.