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Barberton resident turns 109 years old
By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Oct 10, 2008
BARBERTON: The ladies from Josephine Ruth Hickox's physical education classes at Kenmore High School were waiting for the star of the day.
Ten women, who as high school girls worked out in gym class under Miss Hickox's direction, sat in chairs and beamed big smiles as their teacher was brought into the room at Pleasant View Health Care Center for her birthday party Thursday.
It wasn't just any birthday.
Miss Hickox was celebrating her 109th.
Phyllis Beegle Disque, 80, a 1947 Kenmore High School graduate, had not seen Miss Hickox for years but wanted to make it to the nursing facility for the big event.
''She was wonderful,'' Mrs. Disque said. ''She was kind as can be.''
Josephine Ruth Hickox was born in Medina in 1899, the third year of William McKinley's presidency.
She graduated from Barberton High School in 1918 and spent most of her life in Barberton.
Never married, she was a longtime educator, having taught physical education at Akron's Margaret Park Elementary School and Kenmore High School for 42 years.
Her great-niece Tami Lowe of Doylestown said Miss Hickox no longer walks and has poor hearing and vision.
But those are relatively recent infirmities. She was still driving after she passed 100 years of age and moved into Pleasant Pointe Assisted Living on Snyder Avenue in 2004. Two years later, she was transferred to the skilled nursing facility next door, Pleasant View Health Care Center.
At 109, Ruth Hickox isn't the oldest Ohioan.
Ethel Johnson of Upper Sandusky holds that record at 111, according to the Gerontology Research Group Web site http://www.grg.org.
According to the Ohio Department of Aging, as of 2000, there were 1,910 Ohioans who were more than 100 years old and 41 Ohioans older than 110.
A study released in August by the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, examined 16 centenarians whose ages ranged from 99 to 105.
Among the findings in Images of Ohio Centenarians: An Exploratory Study was that ''age was not salient for the participants.'' Instead, the researchers found, the centenarians ''acknowledged their age but confessed to not thinking much about it. They were busy living in the present.''
Participants, the research also found, showed a ''great ability to adapt to a wide range of changes, both good and challenging. They tended to characterize the distant past ambivalently as both the good old days and the bad old days when life was simpler but required more skills and effort.''
Kenmore graduate Wilma Smith Best, 78, said Miss Hickox always wore a suit to class and did not work out with the girls on the gym floor.
''She was very strict, very strict,'' Smith Best said.
Lowe said her great-aunt lived in the house she grew up in near Lake Anna until several years ago.
She said Miss Hickox traveled extensively, visiting China in the 1930s, and stayed fit by working out to Paige Palmer's and Jack LaLanne's television shows.
For her birthday Thursday, she wore black slacks, a rust-colored flowered sweater and a yellow ribbon in her long white hair.
On the table beside her cake were birthday greetings from President George W. Bush, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.
Until the past year, Lowe said, her aunt was still fairly sharp.
But the last months have been marked by considerable deterioration.
''She can't see and can't hear,'' Lowe said.
Much of the time, said Lowe, the director of business operations at Wayne College, her aunt is pretty isolated now.
''It's pretty sad,'' she said.
But her great-aunt still thrives on the human touch.
''She wants somebody to hold her hand,'' Lowe said.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
BARBERTON: The ladies from Josephine Ruth Hickox's physical education classes at Kenmore High School were waiting for the star of the day.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 07:41 AM, 10/10/2008
Great story. Thank you. It is very refreshing to see stories like this amid all the problems and controversies in our world. We need more stories like this.
Posted 08:24 AM, 10/10/2008
Happy Birthday Josephine!!! Thank you for sharing her story with us. God bless her and her family.
Posted 09:12 AM, 10/10/2008
How nice that some of her former students were able to celebrate with her. Happy Birthday! What a long wonderful life.
Posted 09:30 AM, 10/10/2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!
Posted 03:13 PM, 10/10/2008
My grandma is also a resident of Pleasant View Nursing Home. Miss Hickox is a lovely women and I wish her all the best on her birthday.
Posted 03:48 PM, 10/10/2008
God Bless Miss Hickox. What a great story.
