Lucy Rennick, who grew up on a farm in Warren, and now lives in Richmond, turns 100 years old on September 8. “Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she says.The Providence Journal Gretchen Ertl
RICHMOND — Lucy Rennick knows she is approaching her 100th birthday, but she just can’t visualize it.
“Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she said, taking in the sunshine outside her Colonial-era house where the sound of chickens and roosters sometime drowns her out.
But she doesn’t seem to notice. She has always lived on a farm, apart from the summers spent in New Hampshire’s White Mountains where she waitressed as a college student.
It was the piny woods of New Hampshire that drew her to Richmond. The landscape looked and felt the same as the Granite State, and it wasn’t quite as far off from her family, in Warren. So in the 1940s Lucy and her husband, Kenneth A. Ritchie, bought their own piny place.
When she was a little girl growing up in Warren, her last name was Kee, and she lived on a Long Lane farm with brothers Gordon, Robert, Ralston and Skip, and sisters Mary and Irene. She was the second-born, but is the last survivor of the six Kee children.
Her parents, Howard W. and Harriett Kee, ran the farm while the children walked to a nearby “beautiful one-room schoolhouse with eight grades. It was absolutely marvelous.”
The teacher would have the fire going before the students arrived, she recalled, and she described in exacting detail the potbelly stove, the tin cups for drinking water, and the two outhouses. She’d come home from school, change into work clothes, do her chores, and find a book to read.
She still reads, and still lives on a farm, her Richmond farm where she once raised sheep, and cattle and any vegetables the deer didn’t eat. Apple and peach trees remain.
Her husband Kenneth, who was a Cranston school principal, died at age 39 only a few years after returning from serving in World War II, and then Lucy ran the farm herself with the help of friends and neighbors.
“Physical work does you a lot of good,” she said.
While her husband was away during the war, Lucy taught school and helped with her family’s Warren farm as three of her four brothers were in the military. It was what she wanted to do, she said, though because there was a shortage of teachers, her classrooms at Bain Junior High — now Bain Middle School — in Cranston often held as many as 40 or 50 students.
But she remained a Cranston teacher for 38 years.
“There is no more rewarding job than teaching,” she said.
She came to her career by way of Rhode Island College, known at the time as Rhode Island College of Education. It was in downtown Providence and tuition, she said, was free. She wore pleated skirts and “saddle oxfords” to class.
“We dressed like ladies, not expensive or elaborate,” but it was expected that she look the part of the teacher she would become, she said. Her yearbook picture lists basketball as one of her college activities, along with Student Council, Art Club, Press Club, and Kinspirits. She graduated in 1931 and even now, a Rhode Island College sticker adorns her kitchen door.
The college, at the time, “was in view of the State House, [and was] a beautiful old building and it broke my heart when it was torn down [to build Providence Place mall]. I’ve never been to that mall and I don’t intend to,” she said.
Dressed in a blue and white floral outfit with matching blue and white earrings, all of which accent her eyes, she says Hope Valley is where she shops now and has shopped for many years.
Lucy married Charles T. Rennick Sr. several years after her first husband died, “and we stayed right here and took care of the farm,” she said. He died in 1977. She has many nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends who she suspects are planning a celebration for her 100th, which will officially fall on Sept. 8. (She gives a mirthful look at a home health aide who isn’t divulging the details.)
Lucy Rennick said she’d rather read than do most anything else, always has, and sat in her yard with a copy of The Providence Journal on her lap. Not long after her rooster crows each morning — a sound she finds comforting, she said — it’s time for the newspaper. She also watches the news on television, a morning game show, and the news again at lunchtime. At night, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune keep her entertained. Otherwise, she said, “television now isn’t worth the time.”
Sometimes she stays up close to midnight, “talking, talking, talking,” to friends and helpers. She doesn’t get up quite as early as she used to when she was driving to Cranston to teach.
“I drove until I was 97,” she said, and with help from health aides she remains at home surrounded by photos of family. One of herself, from younger days, hangs there, too.
Told she looked beautiful then, she responded, “and I don’t now?”
She laughs heartily at her own joke.
afleming@projo.com
© 2008 The Providence Journal Co
August 29, 2008
USA: A Pair of Queens Are Becoming Centenarians
.
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Providence Journal), August 29, 2008:
By Arline A. Fleming, Journal Staff Writer
Lucy Rennick, who grew up on a farm in Warren, and now lives in Richmond, turns 100 years old on September 8. “Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she says.The Providence Journal Gretchen Ertl
RICHMOND — Lucy Rennick knows she is approaching her 100th birthday, but she just can’t visualize it.
“Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she said, taking in the sunshine outside her Colonial-era house where the sound of chickens and roosters sometime drowns her out.
But she doesn’t seem to notice. She has always lived on a farm, apart from the summers spent in New Hampshire’s White Mountains where she waitressed as a college student.
It was the piny woods of New Hampshire that drew her to Richmond. The landscape looked and felt the same as the Granite State, and it wasn’t quite as far off from her family, in Warren. So in the 1940s Lucy and her husband, Kenneth A. Ritchie, bought their own piny place.
When she was a little girl growing up in Warren, her last name was Kee, and she lived on a Long Lane farm with brothers Gordon, Robert, Ralston and Skip, and sisters Mary and Irene. She was the second-born, but is the last survivor of the six Kee children.
Her parents, Howard W. and Harriett Kee, ran the farm while the children walked to a nearby “beautiful one-room schoolhouse with eight grades. It was absolutely marvelous.”
The teacher would have the fire going before the students arrived, she recalled, and she described in exacting detail the potbelly stove, the tin cups for drinking water, and the two outhouses. She’d come home from school, change into work clothes, do her chores, and find a book to read.
She still reads, and still lives on a farm, her Richmond farm where she once raised sheep, and cattle and any vegetables the deer didn’t eat. Apple and peach trees remain.
Her husband Kenneth, who was a Cranston school principal, died at age 39 only a few years after returning from serving in World War II, and then Lucy ran the farm herself with the help of friends and neighbors.
“Physical work does you a lot of good,” she said.
While her husband was away during the war, Lucy taught school and helped with her family’s Warren farm as three of her four brothers were in the military. It was what she wanted to do, she said, though because there was a shortage of teachers, her classrooms at Bain Junior High — now Bain Middle School — in Cranston often held as many as 40 or 50 students.
But she remained a Cranston teacher for 38 years.
“There is no more rewarding job than teaching,” she said.
She came to her career by way of Rhode Island College, known at the time as Rhode Island College of Education. It was in downtown Providence and tuition, she said, was free. She wore pleated skirts and “saddle oxfords” to class.
“We dressed like ladies, not expensive or elaborate,” but it was expected that she look the part of the teacher she would become, she said. Her yearbook picture lists basketball as one of her college activities, along with Student Council, Art Club, Press Club, and Kinspirits. She graduated in 1931 and even now, a Rhode Island College sticker adorns her kitchen door.
The college, at the time, “was in view of the State House, [and was] a beautiful old building and it broke my heart when it was torn down [to build Providence Place mall]. I’ve never been to that mall and I don’t intend to,” she said.
Dressed in a blue and white floral outfit with matching blue and white earrings, all of which accent her eyes, she says Hope Valley is where she shops now and has shopped for many years.
Lucy married Charles T. Rennick Sr. several years after her first husband died, “and we stayed right here and took care of the farm,” she said. He died in 1977. She has many nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends who she suspects are planning a celebration for her 100th, which will officially fall on Sept. 8. (She gives a mirthful look at a home health aide who isn’t divulging the details.)
Lucy Rennick said she’d rather read than do most anything else, always has, and sat in her yard with a copy of The Providence Journal on her lap. Not long after her rooster crows each morning — a sound she finds comforting, she said — it’s time for the newspaper. She also watches the news on television, a morning game show, and the news again at lunchtime. At night, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune keep her entertained. Otherwise, she said, “television now isn’t worth the time.”
Sometimes she stays up close to midnight, “talking, talking, talking,” to friends and helpers. She doesn’t get up quite as early as she used to when she was driving to Cranston to teach.
“I drove until I was 97,” she said, and with help from health aides she remains at home surrounded by photos of family. One of herself, from younger days, hangs there, too.
Told she looked beautiful then, she responded, “and I don’t now?”
She laughs heartily at her own joke.
afleming@projo.com
© 2008 The Providence Journal Co
Lucy Rennick, who grew up on a farm in Warren, and now lives in Richmond, turns 100 years old on September 8. “Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she says.The Providence Journal Gretchen Ertl
RICHMOND — Lucy Rennick knows she is approaching her 100th birthday, but she just can’t visualize it.
“Me, 100? Couldn’t be,” she said, taking in the sunshine outside her Colonial-era house where the sound of chickens and roosters sometime drowns her out.
But she doesn’t seem to notice. She has always lived on a farm, apart from the summers spent in New Hampshire’s White Mountains where she waitressed as a college student.
It was the piny woods of New Hampshire that drew her to Richmond. The landscape looked and felt the same as the Granite State, and it wasn’t quite as far off from her family, in Warren. So in the 1940s Lucy and her husband, Kenneth A. Ritchie, bought their own piny place.
When she was a little girl growing up in Warren, her last name was Kee, and she lived on a Long Lane farm with brothers Gordon, Robert, Ralston and Skip, and sisters Mary and Irene. She was the second-born, but is the last survivor of the six Kee children.
Her parents, Howard W. and Harriett Kee, ran the farm while the children walked to a nearby “beautiful one-room schoolhouse with eight grades. It was absolutely marvelous.”
The teacher would have the fire going before the students arrived, she recalled, and she described in exacting detail the potbelly stove, the tin cups for drinking water, and the two outhouses. She’d come home from school, change into work clothes, do her chores, and find a book to read.
She still reads, and still lives on a farm, her Richmond farm where she once raised sheep, and cattle and any vegetables the deer didn’t eat. Apple and peach trees remain.
Her husband Kenneth, who was a Cranston school principal, died at age 39 only a few years after returning from serving in World War II, and then Lucy ran the farm herself with the help of friends and neighbors.
“Physical work does you a lot of good,” she said.
While her husband was away during the war, Lucy taught school and helped with her family’s Warren farm as three of her four brothers were in the military. It was what she wanted to do, she said, though because there was a shortage of teachers, her classrooms at Bain Junior High — now Bain Middle School — in Cranston often held as many as 40 or 50 students.
But she remained a Cranston teacher for 38 years.
“There is no more rewarding job than teaching,” she said.
She came to her career by way of Rhode Island College, known at the time as Rhode Island College of Education. It was in downtown Providence and tuition, she said, was free. She wore pleated skirts and “saddle oxfords” to class.
“We dressed like ladies, not expensive or elaborate,” but it was expected that she look the part of the teacher she would become, she said. Her yearbook picture lists basketball as one of her college activities, along with Student Council, Art Club, Press Club, and Kinspirits. She graduated in 1931 and even now, a Rhode Island College sticker adorns her kitchen door.
The college, at the time, “was in view of the State House, [and was] a beautiful old building and it broke my heart when it was torn down [to build Providence Place mall]. I’ve never been to that mall and I don’t intend to,” she said.
Dressed in a blue and white floral outfit with matching blue and white earrings, all of which accent her eyes, she says Hope Valley is where she shops now and has shopped for many years.
Lucy married Charles T. Rennick Sr. several years after her first husband died, “and we stayed right here and took care of the farm,” she said. He died in 1977. She has many nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends who she suspects are planning a celebration for her 100th, which will officially fall on Sept. 8. (She gives a mirthful look at a home health aide who isn’t divulging the details.)
Lucy Rennick said she’d rather read than do most anything else, always has, and sat in her yard with a copy of The Providence Journal on her lap. Not long after her rooster crows each morning — a sound she finds comforting, she said — it’s time for the newspaper. She also watches the news on television, a morning game show, and the news again at lunchtime. At night, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune keep her entertained. Otherwise, she said, “television now isn’t worth the time.”
Sometimes she stays up close to midnight, “talking, talking, talking,” to friends and helpers. She doesn’t get up quite as early as she used to when she was driving to Cranston to teach.
“I drove until I was 97,” she said, and with help from health aides she remains at home surrounded by photos of family. One of herself, from younger days, hangs there, too.
Told she looked beautiful then, she responded, “and I don’t now?”
She laughs heartily at her own joke.
afleming@projo.com
© 2008 The Providence Journal Co
