Union Leader – Asked if she had a secret that would explain her long life, Imogene Williams, 103, alluded first to her lifelong abstinence from alcohol and smoking.
“I tasted it once, and that was it,” Williams said of the day many decades ago when she decided alcohol wasn’t for her. Likewise for the day that she gave smoking a try.
Williams then looked up at her trio of visitors and blurted, “Oh, I didn’t have any husbands either.”
These days, Williams, who was born and grew up in an old farmhouse just a few miles from her current home at the BelAir Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Goffstown, leads a well-rounded life, known by staff and residents alike for her ready smile.
“She’s active in Bingo and she likes the music,” said Kris Aomisarek, BelAir’s life enrichment coordinator, referring to musical groups that occasionally perform at the center.
“And she’ll go out with us once in a while,” Aomisarek added.
For Williams’s recent birthday party, staff went all out, bringing in a variety of visitors to share in the celebration.
Among them were clergy and parishioners of the nearby Hillside United Methodist Church, of which Williams is a lifelong congregant. Her parents, George and Gladys Williams, were also lifelong parishioners of what was then the Second Methodist Church.
Although a humble, unassuming woman prone to bouts of self-deprecation, Williams relished the attention paid her by her many visitors throughout the day, Aomisarek said.
“She was smiling for two days after that party,” she said.
Stuffed animals were the most common gifts Williams received, and it wasn’t long before she had them all in place around her first-floor room.
“She loves her stuffed animals,” Aomisarek said, adding that she delights in rearranging them when the whim strikes …
