Nellie Jones turns 100 years young
Rocking on her porch chair, Nellie Jones is unfazed by reaching the century mark.
It's not that much different from turning 90, she said. “Once you know for sure you’re only getting older, you might as well get used to it. I’ve been fortunate,” Jones said.
Jones celebrated her 100th birthday May 22 at her beloved home on St. Lawrence Street in Rehoboth Beach, a place where she and four generations of her family have spent their summers. Her three children, eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren and the children of friends and neighbors since departed attended the party.
“It really was very nice. Of all my neighbors and friends, I’m the only one left, really. It’s nice to see their children.”
Jones’s health has been remarkable; she stopped driving only a year ago as her eyesight and hearing started to deteriorate. Her memory is still sharp. Her caregiver, Darlene Bush, said it is not uncommon for Jones to begin running down the history of buildings or houses she may pass by in the car.
Born Nellie Keithley in Wilmington in 1915, she was the youngest of five siblings. About her health, Jones said she was sickly as a child, contracting measles, whooping cough and scarlet fever at different times.
She graduated from Wilmington High in 1934 and spent a year at West Chester College. She became a secretary, but she did not stay in the workforce for long. It was during the Great Depression, and Jones said her father didn’t want her to work.
“My father was rather old-fashioned. My father said, ‘You know, I don’t think you ought to be working. You’re taking away a job from someone who really needs it, and you don’t need it,’” Jones said, adding, “Well, it didn’t take much to persuade me!”
Jones’ mother enjoyed coming to Rehoboth for the summer, while her father preferred his native St. Michaels, Md. When her father died in the early 1940s, Jones’ mother purchased a cottage at 21 St. Lawrence St. .
Later she said, “The house was left to me and my brothers, and my brothers didn’t want it. They had interests elsewhere, so my sister and I took it together."
In 1937, she married William Jones of Wilmington and the couple stayed together 55 years until William’s death in 1992. William worked for Hercules Company in Wilmington while Nellie raised their three children: Bill, now 76; Keithley, now 74; and Constance, now 70. The family continued the tradition of coming to Rehoboth, which Jones described as a very different time in the 1940s.
“This street was this house and the one across the street and the next house and then there was nothing up until the Boardwalk. This all was open lots,” Jones said.
She said back then, the Boardwalk was elevated, so visitors had to go underneath it to get to the ocean.
Much of the St. Lawrence Street house is the same as it was when Jones’ family first purchased it in the 1940s: they have built an addition, enclosed the porch, installed air conditioning and made improvements to the first floor.
Nellie said her family made fewer trips to Rehoboth during World War II because gasoline was costly.
“When we did come down, we had to lower the blinds on the ocean side. We didn’t have to go completely dark. On the Boardwalk, they had big things on the lights so they just shined out on the ocean. Food was scarce. It just so happened I had a cousin who was a butcher so we did get beef when we came down. I think Rehoboth was fortunate because we did hear rumors that there were German ships offshore,” Jones said.
Jones was in Wilmington during Rehoboth’s famous Storm of ’62. She said friends in Wilmington would ask if she was worried about their Rehoboth house.
“I’d say, ‘No, it’s OK. It’s been through lots of storms,” Jones said. “And then my neighbor called and she said, ‘Nellie, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the tide has come up and it goes into the lake, and it’s going right up King Charles.' Making waves, she said. The next day we came down to see what had happened, and they wouldn’t let anyone in town, you had to be a homeowner,” Jones said. “That was the worst storm that I’ve known. We didn’t have any harm, but there was flooding in the basement.”
Nellie and William retired to Rehoboth in 1981, which suited William, who liked to play golf, Jones said. The couple spent their retirement years traveling to Jamaica, Bermuda, Panama and Alaska, with Jones identifying their trips to Europe as her favorite.
Jones also got to indulge in her own hobby: bridge, which she still plays. She said she doesn’t play competitively anymore, but she still enjoys playing with friends when she can.
“My family played bridge, and our friends played bridge, so I just always played bridge,” Jones said. “That was my pasttime.”
Bridge was how Nellie and William met.
“He was playing bridge with my mother – my mother was playing bridge with my brother and two other men,” she said.
That night, Bill Jones introduced himself to Nellie and offered to take her out. Jones said the couple lasted so long because they were happy and content with their lives.
“It was a good life,” she said.
Besides bridge, Jones’ other passion is Philadelphia Phillies baseball. She drinks from a Phillies cup and has a row of player bobble heads.
“She loves the Phillies,” Bush said.
“And they’re hard to love sometimes,” Jones replied.
Jones missed the Phillies' 1980 World Series win because she was flying from Jamaica. As she was landing she saw the fireworks from Veterans Stadium and knew for sure they had won. Jones did get to see the Phillies' 2008 World Series win on TV.
Jones said she became interested in baseball watching the 1950 Phillies team, known as the Whiz Kids because the team was so young. The club included Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts and won the National League pennant before being swept in the World Series by the New York Yankees.
“They were real flashy for Philadelphia. Everybody was watching, and I got interested then,” Jones said.
When asked what she thinks about turning 100, Jones shook her head and said, “I remember my grandparents in St. Michaels and they were as old as Methuselah and they lived to 60 or 70.”
