Manchester Centenarian Remembers Several 'Firsts'
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
NORTH MANCHESTER - Velma Felabom, 100, remembers everything from the first car and electricity to growing up during the Great Depression.
She lived on her own until recently, when she broke her arm - her first broken bone ever. She then decided to move into Peabody Retirement Community, North Manchester.
She was born May 12, 1901, in a little town called Tunker.
Felabom said during her childhood years she lived with the hardships of being poor growing up during the Great Depression.
"I hope you guys never have to go through it," Felabom told me. "I can't say we suffered a lot because we lived on a farm. What we bought wasn't worth half of what we paid for it. So I had to go back to work.
"We would have lost everything we had if I hadn't gone back to work," she said.
She went to work in an OshKosh overall factory in Columbia City, where she worked nine-hour days that began at 4 a.m.
"When we lived on the farm," Felabom recalled, "we had no electricity and no inside plumbing.
"In 1938 at 4 p.m., we got our electric lights," Felabom said. "We also got a radio." But the radio could only get one station out of New York, she said.
The night electricity arrived, Felabom fixed supper for 12 people and they played "lots of cards - always."
She was a member of several clubs including Eastern Star, Country Women's Club, Baccarat Club and pinochle, bridge and euchre clubs.
"I belonged to a lot of clubs," she said. "And I'm still playing bridge.
"All of those clubs I belonged to, I don't think there's any of them living anymore. So I had to make new friends. I made lots and lots of friends - at least I think so."
She also joined the Christian Church in the mid 1950s and is still a member.
In 1957, Felabom started selling Tupperware and continued until 1985.
"I went 33 years in Tupperware," she said. "I went into Tupperware just thinking I'd make a little cash."
From there she was hooked. She was a manager for a while and received a new car, as all Tupperware managers did back then.
"It did more for me than all the money in the world," she said.
While selling Tupperware, she traveled a lot and made a lot of friends, she said. She traveled to places like Hawaii, California, New York, Canada and Niagara Falls. She remembered her train ride to New York as being a long 24 hours.
While in New York in 1969, she remembers seeing Radio City Music Hall, the Rockettes, two movies and a Broadway show.
"I'll take to little towns," she said. "I like to walk down the streets and say 'Hi' to someone. I wouldn't want to live in New York - or even Fort Wayne."
In the '60s, Felabom bought her own car and "still stayed in Tupperware."
Also in the '60s, Felabom said, she moved to North Manchester in a house on Singer Road.
"Most of my life I grew up around North Manchester, Bippus and South Whitley," she said.
When she was 4 years old she lived in Bracken.
"I don't remember seeing a book until I went to school," she recalled. "I only had one doll with a china head." Her mother made a rag-body for the doll.
"I spent most of my life jumping rope," Felabom said. "I was a tomboy."
She remembers prices, too. Sugar was 5 cents a pound, she said. And she always looked forward to the huckster wagon (like a traveling salesman in a covered wagon) "because he always had a piece of candy for you."
"In May the gypsies always came," Felabom recalled. "They always tried to get in men's pockets for money.
"We had one woman who smoked a pipe and we'd always sneak around to see her because how awful we thought that was," she said as she laughed.
She also remembers when women were allowed to vote in 1920, when beer taverns closed and "also the year the whole country went dry when Hoover was elected.
"Franklin Roosevelt was elected in '32 and took office in spring '33 and all the banks were closed," Felabom said. "Lots of banks failed at that time."
Felabom was working in Columbia City at OshKosh and remembers receiving her pay in little packets of cash.
"The Bippus State Bank was one of the strongest banks," she said, "and it's still there. Bippus was quite a thriving little town at that time."
She said Bippus had three grocery stores, one restaurant, one shoe repair shop, one drugstore, one horse repair shop and one barber shop at the time.
"The first car I ever saw looked like a wagon," she said. "Men drove with overcoats on, and (they) didn't drive very fast."
"I was 13 when Dad bought his first car," Felabom said.
She also remembers her first airplane ride to Florida in the '50s.
In Felabom's teen-age years, she said, a group of friends would drive a horse and buggy into downtown North Manchester on Saturday nights, tie it up, go to an ice cream shop and then walk the streets.
"Oh, we had a good time all those years," Felabom said. She laughed as she said kids are still walking the streets today.
She doesn't have a favorite decade. "I had a lot of fun in all of them," she said, laughing.
Things aren't the same now as when Felabom grew up.
"Manchester was an entirely different town then," she said. "You didn't need to be afraid to walk down the streets. People wouldn't bother you. It's a lot different. Imagine, when I was a little kid, there were no paved streets.
"It's an entirely different world out there," Felabom said. "You didn't have to be scared. If you needed help, people helped you. People respected each other."
Felabom's advice to young people today: "Work hard, be honest and the thing that meant more to me was people," she said.
"I worked hard. I had a lot of fun. I never had a lot of money to spend, but we had a lot of fun," Felabom said.
"I'm hoping not to be here long, but you never know. I never thought I'd live to be 100 - I thought 85."
Amazed at everything she remembers during her life, I asked Felabom how she could remember the details.
"Well, I have a good memory," she said, smiling.
Felabom also wrote a book on her history and most everything she can remember during her life. She hand-wrote the book on pieces of paper over a period of two years, then her granddaughter, Jeannine Basquin, typed it up for her.
Felabom has two children, eight granddaughters and one deceased granddaughter.
Friends of Felabom's, Ron and Joyce Eberly, look after her, and she said she's happy in Peabody Retirement Community.
"You're well taken care of. What more could you ask?" [[In-content Ad]]
NORTH MANCHESTER - Velma Felabom, 100, remembers everything from the first car and electricity to growing up during the Great Depression.
She lived on her own until recently, when she broke her arm - her first broken bone ever. She then decided to move into Peabody Retirement Community, North Manchester.
She was born May 12, 1901, in a little town called Tunker.
Felabom said during her childhood years she lived with the hardships of being poor growing up during the Great Depression.
"I hope you guys never have to go through it," Felabom told me. "I can't say we suffered a lot because we lived on a farm. What we bought wasn't worth half of what we paid for it. So I had to go back to work.
"We would have lost everything we had if I hadn't gone back to work," she said.
She went to work in an OshKosh overall factory in Columbia City, where she worked nine-hour days that began at 4 a.m.
"When we lived on the farm," Felabom recalled, "we had no electricity and no inside plumbing.
"In 1938 at 4 p.m., we got our electric lights," Felabom said. "We also got a radio." But the radio could only get one station out of New York, she said.
The night electricity arrived, Felabom fixed supper for 12 people and they played "lots of cards - always."
She was a member of several clubs including Eastern Star, Country Women's Club, Baccarat Club and pinochle, bridge and euchre clubs.
"I belonged to a lot of clubs," she said. "And I'm still playing bridge.
"All of those clubs I belonged to, I don't think there's any of them living anymore. So I had to make new friends. I made lots and lots of friends - at least I think so."
She also joined the Christian Church in the mid 1950s and is still a member.
In 1957, Felabom started selling Tupperware and continued until 1985.
"I went 33 years in Tupperware," she said. "I went into Tupperware just thinking I'd make a little cash."
From there she was hooked. She was a manager for a while and received a new car, as all Tupperware managers did back then.
"It did more for me than all the money in the world," she said.
While selling Tupperware, she traveled a lot and made a lot of friends, she said. She traveled to places like Hawaii, California, New York, Canada and Niagara Falls. She remembered her train ride to New York as being a long 24 hours.
While in New York in 1969, she remembers seeing Radio City Music Hall, the Rockettes, two movies and a Broadway show.
"I'll take to little towns," she said. "I like to walk down the streets and say 'Hi' to someone. I wouldn't want to live in New York - or even Fort Wayne."
In the '60s, Felabom bought her own car and "still stayed in Tupperware."
Also in the '60s, Felabom said, she moved to North Manchester in a house on Singer Road.
"Most of my life I grew up around North Manchester, Bippus and South Whitley," she said.
When she was 4 years old she lived in Bracken.
"I don't remember seeing a book until I went to school," she recalled. "I only had one doll with a china head." Her mother made a rag-body for the doll.
"I spent most of my life jumping rope," Felabom said. "I was a tomboy."
She remembers prices, too. Sugar was 5 cents a pound, she said. And she always looked forward to the huckster wagon (like a traveling salesman in a covered wagon) "because he always had a piece of candy for you."
"In May the gypsies always came," Felabom recalled. "They always tried to get in men's pockets for money.
"We had one woman who smoked a pipe and we'd always sneak around to see her because how awful we thought that was," she said as she laughed.
She also remembers when women were allowed to vote in 1920, when beer taverns closed and "also the year the whole country went dry when Hoover was elected.
"Franklin Roosevelt was elected in '32 and took office in spring '33 and all the banks were closed," Felabom said. "Lots of banks failed at that time."
Felabom was working in Columbia City at OshKosh and remembers receiving her pay in little packets of cash.
"The Bippus State Bank was one of the strongest banks," she said, "and it's still there. Bippus was quite a thriving little town at that time."
She said Bippus had three grocery stores, one restaurant, one shoe repair shop, one drugstore, one horse repair shop and one barber shop at the time.
"The first car I ever saw looked like a wagon," she said. "Men drove with overcoats on, and (they) didn't drive very fast."
"I was 13 when Dad bought his first car," Felabom said.
She also remembers her first airplane ride to Florida in the '50s.
In Felabom's teen-age years, she said, a group of friends would drive a horse and buggy into downtown North Manchester on Saturday nights, tie it up, go to an ice cream shop and then walk the streets.
"Oh, we had a good time all those years," Felabom said. She laughed as she said kids are still walking the streets today.
She doesn't have a favorite decade. "I had a lot of fun in all of them," she said, laughing.
Things aren't the same now as when Felabom grew up.
"Manchester was an entirely different town then," she said. "You didn't need to be afraid to walk down the streets. People wouldn't bother you. It's a lot different. Imagine, when I was a little kid, there were no paved streets.
"It's an entirely different world out there," Felabom said. "You didn't have to be scared. If you needed help, people helped you. People respected each other."
Felabom's advice to young people today: "Work hard, be honest and the thing that meant more to me was people," she said.
"I worked hard. I had a lot of fun. I never had a lot of money to spend, but we had a lot of fun," Felabom said.
"I'm hoping not to be here long, but you never know. I never thought I'd live to be 100 - I thought 85."
Amazed at everything she remembers during her life, I asked Felabom how she could remember the details.
"Well, I have a good memory," she said, smiling.
Felabom also wrote a book on her history and most everything she can remember during her life. She hand-wrote the book on pieces of paper over a period of two years, then her granddaughter, Jeannine Basquin, typed it up for her.
Felabom has two children, eight granddaughters and one deceased granddaughter.
Friends of Felabom's, Ron and Joyce Eberly, look after her, and she said she's happy in Peabody Retirement Community.
"You're well taken care of. What more could you ask?" [[In-content Ad]]