{"id":1938,"date":"2025-07-15T16:13:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T16:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:13:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T16:13:20","slug":"every-day-that-god-gives-you-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1938","title":{"rendered":"‘Every day that God gives you, use it.’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Edit Renfrow Smith, who turned 111 on Monday, welcomed visitors. From left, (with backs to the camera) Valeriya Woodard and Feven Getachew, and two recent graduates from Grinnell College, where Smith, Class of \u201937, is the oldest living graduate. At center, Rev. Jane Eesley, the new senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, where Smith is a member. She stopped by to give Smith communion. At far right is associate pastor Sophia Carno. \u201cYou have made my day so very special,\u201d Smith said, after taking communion. <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Loneliness is the curse of old age. Your friends are gone, your family distant, your life\u2019s work, a box in the basement. Most seniors struggle with it.<\/p>\n

But most seniors are not Edith Renfrow Smith, who at times Monday had a dozen visitors in her room at Brookdale Senior Living on Sheridan Road. And that was before the party celebrating her 111th birthday.<\/p>\n

Regular readers might recall meeting Mrs. Smith on her 107th birthday<\/a>, and learning about her extraordinary life. Born in 1914 in Iowa, she became the first Black woman to graduate from Grinnell College. She pooh-poohs it, but had her share of encounters with the famous, from Amelia Earhart to Muhammad Ali. <\/p>\n

Not to forget her grandparents, born in slavery. <\/p>\n

Or the boy across the street, Herbie, who taught her daughter Alice to play \u201cChopsticks\u201d on the piano. Herbie Hancock, the future jazz great.<\/p>\n

I joined the crowd, and asked: how did her 110th year go?<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything has been fine,\u201d Mrs. Smith said, precisely, not mentioning specifics.<\/p>\n

Such as in September, when Grinnell College named a dorm after her \u2014 Renfrow Hall. Not be confused with Renfrow Gallery, or the Edith Renfrow Smith Black Women\u2019s Library, previous tributes bestowed by the college, which granted her an honorary doctorate in 2019.<\/p>\n

Two recent graduates, Feven Getachew and Valeriya Woodard, hung on the conversation. Dr. Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, the Department chair of Gender, Women\u2019s, and Sexuality Studies at Grinnell, observed from a distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been listening to Mrs. Smith and realized, she is her family\u2019s historian,\u201d said Beauboeuf-Lafontant, who is writing a book on Mrs. Smith and her extraordinary family. \u201cShe keeps the memories, she inherited the memories from her mother. It\u2019s extraordinary she has taken on an old West African role of preserving the memories of your family, your people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Smith seemed content to let conversation flow around her, though I tried to pick out highlights from the past year. I asked if she voted in November, drawing a reaction near outrage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI NEVER have not voted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Does she still bake? Last year we watched her and Alice, 79, bake a pie <\/a>with, all the drama that can be expected from a mother-daughter pair who have nearly 200 years of life between them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes,\u201d Mrs. Smith replied. \u201cOver there on the counter is a pie we baked yesterday. A cherry raspberry pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pie was brought out for admiration. Though the reason for its creation is even more noteworthy \u2014 her Sunday helper, Ebony, had confessed that she had never baked a pie. Mrs. Smith thought that a lapse worthy of immediate correction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time she had ever made a pie,\u201d she said. \u201cHer mother had taught her to cook, but never to bake. That\u2019s why I told her to take a piece to her mother. I like to do things; I don\u2019t like to do nothing. She was here to take care of me, and I said, \u2018Oh, we can make a pie.\u2019 So that\u2019s what we did. I said, \u2018You<\/i> made the pie.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Living to 111 is extremely rare. About 3 in 10,000 Americans live to be 100<\/a>, or 0.027 percent. There are thought to be fewer than 1,000 \u201csupercentenarians\u201d \u2014 people who live to 110 \u2014 in the world. Making Mrs. Smith not one in a million, but closer to one in 10 million.<\/p>\n

I asked her what 111 feels like. She replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels just like every day. I say, \u2018You do what you do every day.\u2019 That\u2019s what makes life worth living. People let you tell them what you like. This is you. That\u2019s me. I like to talk to people. I like people. I say, \u2018Every day that God gives you, use it.\u2019 And you can do that. You can do what you like, because someone has said, \u2018Oh hey. Try it. Try it and see.\u2019 You don\u2019t know unless you try. Don\u2019t let anybody tell you, \u2018I can\u2019t.\u2019 You say, \u2018I\u2019ll try.\u2019’ That\u2019s the difference between living and not living: \u2018I tried it, but I didn\u2019t like it, so I didn\u2019t do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t spend your time doing things not worthwhile. What are you doing that for? \u2018I don\u2019t know. I did it because I didn\u2019t know\u2019. That makes every day and every year worthwhile, because you tried it and you did it. If it was good, it was good. If it wasn\u2019t any good, you throw it out. Don\u2019t hang on to things that mean nothing. Why hang onto something that means nothing to you? God gave us choice. People, they stopped letting individuals have choice. Don\u2019t make my choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Edith Renfrow Smith, 111, had an eventful year \u2014 a dorm was named for her at Grinnell College, where she, Class of \u201937, is the oldest living and first Black female graduate. She voted and, oh yes, fractured her pelvis in a fall. .But it was a hairline fracture and, except for three weeks spent unnecessarily in a nursing him, she didn\u2019t let the mishap slow her down. <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n