Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 139, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1913 — WOMAN, 101, TRAVELS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMAN, 101, TRAVELS

Aunt Mary Is Not a Real Hobo, for She Works ... i i., .1 i~j i Mrs. Everett of Maine Hat Wanderlust as Certainly ae Any Weary Willie—Aids. Farmers in Their Work. Fort Fairfield, Me.—Recently Mrs. Mary Everett celebrated her one hundred and first birthday. It is rather difficult to say where "Aunt Mary” will be in'a few days, for she has the wanderlust and may be ’way up in Madawaska or down at Mattawamkeag. | Mrs. Everett is one of the oddest characters in New England. She was born in St. John, N. 8., in 1812, according to the parish register. Her people were well-to-do and she went to school until she was about eighteen. Then, she says, there were religious differences in her family and she left home and never went back. Eventually she came to Aroostook county and was married to George Everett, a farmer. He died many years ago. Their one daughter is still living. For fifty years Mary Everett has earned her own living, and she does today. Sprightly and vigorous as the average woman of sixty, she travels continually, staying but two or three days in a place. Everybody knows her, and almost anybody in the country towns of the county is glad to give

- her shelter. "She is as good as a show," they say. She has a vast fund of funny stories and anecdotes, and no end of quips and epigrams, while she can relate many incidents of the early days of the county with historical accuracy, and knows the genealogy and the scandals of scores of families back to the second and third generation. In the summer she earns money by picking up and sorting and selling apples, the average Aroostock farmer being too busy with his vast potato plantation to bother with them. In the winter she gathers scraps of silk and stows them in a capafclous bag and makes (hem Jnto quilts, which she sells. She is skilled with the needle, which she threads without glasses. But it matters not how cordial her welcome and how comfortable her quarters, she remains in one place only a day or two and then takes to the road with the persistency of the professional hobo. She trudges along the road until d farmer’s team comes along and gives her a lift. Of late years it Is raid she declines to ride anything but an automobile. She rides

as far aB the vehicle goes, no matter whero. Aunt Mary has been offered a good home several times, but she says, “Not yet.” She says she may settle down "blmeby” when she gets old and feeble.”

Mrs. Mary Everett.