HENRIETTA'S STILL GOING STRONG AT 99.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
``The Lord don't want me and the devil won't take me.'' - Henrietta Eiseman, celebrating her 99th birthday If you were wondering whatever happened to Scarlett O'Hara after Rhett Butler Rhett Butler is the handsome, dashing hero of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. The novel introduces him as the problem-solving pragmatist who is sure that the South cannot win a protracted war with the North. left her, she's working three days a week in the gift shop at Valley Presbyterian Hospital Presbyterian Hospital can refer to several places:
She goes by the name Henrietta Eiseman these days. And instead of Tara, she's living in a two-bedroom condominium condominium In modern property law, individual ownership of one dwelling unit within a multidwelling building. Unit owners have undivided ownership interest in the land and those portions of the building shared in common. . She's turning 100 next year, but her friends and co-workers at the Van Nuys hospital where she's been volunteering the past 17 years aren't taking anything for granted so they threw her a 99th birthday party Monday. Scarlett's still as feisty and flirty as ever - still talking in that slow, charming Southern drawl drawl v. drawled, drawl·ing, drawls v.intr. To speak with lengthened or drawn-out vowels. v.tr. that broke so many male hearts. ``My, aren't you looking well,'' she said, taking my hand. ``Why, you haven't changed a bit.'' The last time I'd seen this Southern belle For other uses, see Southern Belle (disambiguation). A southern belle (derived from the French belle, 'beautiful') is an archetype for a young woman of the American Old South's antebellum upper class. was in 1995, when the hospital proclaimed it Henrietta Eiseman Day on her 90th birthday. On her 80th, a male stripper Stripper Slang for an individual homeowner who strips the equity out of his or her home through mortgage refinancing. Proceeds are generally not re-invested, but spent on consumer goods. Notes: Most people get rich by saving and investing wisely. made an appearance. You know how some people just stand out in a crowd or light up a room when they walk into it? That's Henrietta. She grabs your heart, then makes you laugh. ``How you feeling?'' I ask her. ``Great - from the neck up,'' she says. Most people - if they're lucky enough to get to her age - end the day with a little warm milk. Henrietta still ends hers with a Bloody Mary - strictly for medicinal purposes Medicinal Purposes is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Plot Edinburgh, 1827. . ``Once in a while I'll make it a screwdriver screwdriver, n See instrument, screwdriver. , but as a rule I stick to Bloody Marys,'' she said with a mischievous smile. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, she spends the day behind the cash register in the hospital gift shop. ``On Wednesdays, I think about cleaning my condo, and on Fridays I still get my hair and nails done. The weekends I spend with my grandkids.'' She was born in 1905 in Birmingham, Ala., the daughter of a wholesale jeweler. ``I went to Wellesley College Wellesley College, at Wellesley, Mass.; for women; chartered 1870, opened 1875. Long a leader in women's education, it was the first woman's college to have scientific laboratories. and basically majored in getting a husband, like many girls did in those days,'' Scarlett, I mean Henrietta, told me on her 90th birthday. Four years later, she had a business degree, but no husband. He showed up a year later, and the marriage didn't last much longer. ``Seventy years ago, Jewish girls didn't get divorces,'' she said. ``I did.'' She moved to California with a baby daughter, Ann, and started a new life - paying the bills by selling fabric and supplies for a knitting firm before landing a job with a dress company. It was a job she'd keep for almost 30 years, until the firm went out of business. ``I was 83 and still working full time. I knew I couldn't just retire and sit around the house knitting or going to Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. all the time. So I went down to the unemployment office and asked the man behind the counter what kind of jobs he had for me. ``He said, 'Honey, at your age, don't even try. Nobody's going to hire you.' Well, that kind of got me upset. My daughter, Ann, suggested I try to do volunteer work, and that's how I got started at the hospital.'' Ann. The mention of her name is the only time Henrietta doesn't smile or laugh. The only time her eyes well up with tears, just saying her name. ``The happiest moment of my life is when Ann was born,'' she said. ``The saddest is when she died.'' Henrietta mourned her loss, then went to work two days a week for the Cancer Society - for her only child who died of cancer. She had to quit a couple of years ago when the society moved from its Van Nuys location, and she could no longer drive. ``Ann left me beautiful grandchildren GRANDCHILDREN, domestic relations. The children of one's children. Sometimes these may claim bequests given in a will to children, though in general they can make no such claim. 6 Co. 16. , and they've given me beautiful great-grandchildren I love very much,'' she said. Her other family are the volunteers and staffers she works with at Valley Presbyterian. They keep her going, she says, keep her young. ``It's a two-way street,'' said Marilyn Mullins, gift shop manager. ``She keeps us young. Henrietta's so full of vim and vigor - taught us all never to give up. She's a remarkable woman who's led a remarkable life.'' A life that just keeps on going because the Lord doesn't want her and the devil won't take her, Scarlett says. Good for us. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Henrietta Eiseman operates the cash register when she volunteers in the gift shop at Valley Presbyterian Hospital three days a week. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
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