FAIRMONT — One of Janie Mitchell’s earliest childhood memories is of her first-grade teacher at Rosenwald Elementary School in Fairmont.
“My first-grade teacher was named Janie Floyd,” Mitchell said, reminiscing with a smile. “She always had a little paddle.”
That was nearly a century ago. Mitchell turns 106 years old on Friday , making her date of birth Nov. 2, 1912.
“It feels great. I feel just like I’ve always felt,” Mitchell said. “I don’t feel any older than I was yesterday.”
Mitchell was the youngest of 12 children born to Rosetta and Charlie Ladson, and the only one still living. After her father died 101 years ago, her mother, a midwife, raised Mitchell and her siblings alone. Mitchell lived in Fairmont for most of her life, but she was born in Plantersville, a small community outside Conway, S.C. She moved to Fairmont sometime around 1914.
She started Rosenwald, a school for blacks, soon after her father died, she said.
“I would walk every day to school. I would walk there and I’d walk back,” Mitchell said. “I would go by the train station, and it would be so cold.”
Mitchell married her husband, Proctor Mitchell, just shy of the her 18th birthday, she said. While Mitchell did domestic work throughout her life, her husband worked selling coal in the winters and ice in the summers. She credits her domestic knowledge of baking and cooking to a woman who lived in North Fairmont.
“That’s how I learned how to do a lot of baking. They would come to my house and buy biscuits and buy pies and cakes,” Mitchell said of her family and Fairmont residents.
Mitchell has one living child, Ruth Yvonne, who celebrated her 74th birthday in August. She lives in Flint, Mich.
“Both of my boys passed to be with Jesus,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell has nine grandchildren. Her oldest, the only female, is 64.
“God has been good to me all of these years,” Mitchell said. “It’s a blessing to live all the years and get to the age I have. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that He blessed me all of these years to be among you younger ones.”
Her cousin, Minnie McCormick, said she has always been close Mitchell. The Fairmont native lived just across from Mitchell for most of her life.
“After my mom passed, she sort of picked up where my mother left off,” McCormick said. “My mother died in 1953, and she was still across the street from me.”
As she did in her younger years, McCormick relies on Mitchell for advice.
“I would go to her and talk about different things in my life,” McCormick said. “I still do. She still gives me good points. It’s good that I have someone that I’m close to that I don’t mind talking to about things.”
McCormick brings Mitchell some soul food most days, whether it’s fried chicken, turnip greens or liver pudding for breakfast.
These days, Mitchell lives a quiet life at the Lumberton Health and Rehabilitation Center. She enjoys visits from her great-nieces and great-nephews, Kelly, Donna, Monique, Graham Jr. and singing old gospel hymns like she did at her church, Star of Bethlehem Church.
Although Mitchell is thankful for every day, she loves to sing her favorite song, the old hymn “‘When All Get to Heaven.”
“That would be a great time we get to Heaven to see Him,” Mitchell said. “Wouldn’t it be?”
