GRAVETTE — More than 125 years ago, a determined family traveled the grueling distance from Minnesota in acovered wagon. When they finally found a good place for a homestead, the family was hundreds of miles south, just outside Sulphur Springs. Now, on the site of the original farm, there are few marks of the homesteaders except for a sign reading “Check’s Corner.”
Six generations later, though, dozens of homesteaders’ descendants still call the area home.
One granddaughter of the sturdy Minnesota couple, Mrs. Virginia Todd, celebrated her 80th birthday on Sunday, April 17. The active woman known to many simply as “Miss Virginia” was born at home on a farm outside of Southwest City, Mo., less than 10 miles from where she now lives in Gravette.
Whether volunteering, hosting family reunions, mowing her lawn or caring for her two great-grandchildren, Todd redefines what 80 looks like.
“I think that my greatgrandkids keep me alive!” she said as she smiled.
The vibrant 80-year-old admitted she comes from hardy stock.
“The story goes that my mother planted field corn all day long. Then, Mom came home and had me that night.”
Virginia Todd carefully unpacked her senior portrait from its cardboard box. In the black and white photograph taken in 1949, Todd - then Virginia Craig - grins broadly, wearing a dress she sewed herself. The woman in the portrait has experienced many changes in her life, including various jobs, marriages, births and heartbreaking losses of people she loved.
Gravette, which had only dirt roads when she moved into town in 1952, has changed in eight decades, too. Despite this transformation, Todd said that the sense of community has remained intact.That feeling of support kept her around for so many years.
“When my first husband had a heart attack, we needed food and money.” Todd said she was overwhelmed with the outpouring of support she received, from job offers to hot dishes. “Our mail carrier’s wife gave us some potato salad. In the middle, she had stuck ina five dollar bill in plastic wrap. At that time five dollars was a lot of money.”
Over eight decades, Todd has given back to the community, too. Since 1987 she has volunteered regularly at the Care and Share store.
“My greatest pleasure is doing for other people,” Todd once said to her son, Steven.
Before his untimely death in 1977, Steven penciled those words on the wall by the telephone, where his mother could always read them. Todd never painted over the words and never stopped living by them.
Todd isn’t planning on changing her life’s philosophy. She also plans to spend the rest of her years in Gravette.
“People just take care of you here,” she said. “If you have a problem and people know about it, they’re right there to help you. I just don’t think that there’s any place I’d rather live than right here.”
News, Pages 2 on 04/20/2011