No time for questions as woman turns 109

Sharing photos is party’s highlight

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --2/17/2014--
Leta Nolen reads some of the 109 birthday cards she recieved to celebrate her 109th birthday Monday during a party at Robinson Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Little Rock.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --2/17/2014-- Leta Nolen reads some of the 109 birthday cards she recieved to celebrate her 109th birthday Monday during a party at Robinson Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Little Rock.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

On her 109th birthday Monday, Leta Nolen looked happiest sitting next to her friend Leo Evers, showing off a packet of photos - never mind the fuss being made in her honor.

The celebration with residents at the Robinson Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Little Rock included live music, a sheet cake with three large numbered candles on it - 109 - waiting on a table decorated with balloons, and dozens of birthday cards for Nolen,born Feb. 17, 1905, in Vilonia.

Nolen is 23 years past a woman’s average life expectancy of 86 years, according to a standard calculation from the Social Security Administration website.

Still, Nolen never likes when a big deal is made about her birthday, said her friend Carolyn Wright, who helped the nursing home staff organize the party. Wright is retired from what is now US Bank and became friends with Nolen, who was a regular customer.

“She used to come in and we’d take care of her,” Wright recalled. “Then she’d get in her little red car, and we’d all pray she wouldn’t hit anything and she’d get home.

“She quit driving when she was 100,” Wright said. “At 103, she moved in here.”

Nolen still wears on her right thumb the wedding band of her husband, Fred, who died in 1957, and his watch on her left wrist. They had no children. She stayed in her house in North Little Rock until she moved to the nursing center.

Nolen’s biggest physical limitation is that she doesn’t hear very well, said Sheri Heslep, the nursing center’s administrator, adding that Nolen refuses to get a hearing aid.

“She’s amazing,” Heslep said. “She can walk, but she prefers to be in her wheelchair. She’s very happy-go-lucky. She’s a neat lady; she really is. We’re blessed to have her here.”

To help her communicate, Nolen will let someone she knows place a bottomless Styrofoam cup to her ear like a megaphone so she can hear words better.

But as she celebrated her birthday Monday, she wasn’t in the mood for questions.

“Don’t question me,” Nolen said to Wright, who used the cup to try to help a pair of reporters on hand to record the event. “I can’t hear you well enough.”

When Wright tried again, Nolen repeated: “I don’t want to be questioned!”

Nolen would talk and smile during her party in the center’s ballroom when her friends leaned in close to her. She had her wheelchair pushed next to that of Evers, 90, who waved his hands to the music being played.

“That’s Brownie,” a dog of hers, she was heard telling Evers at one point, thumbing through the photos in her hands.

“He keeps her happy,” Heslep observed.

Casting a sideways glance at a photographer aiming a camera toward her next to Evers, Nolen just gave two little flicks of her right wrist, gently waving him away.

“She is something else,” Wright said of her friend.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/18/2014