Avis Gunter, 94, Says Keeping Busy Is Key To A Long And Happy Life
Avis Gunter, 94, Says Keeping Busy Is Key To A Long And Happy Life
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Avis Gunter, 94, Says Keeping Busy Is Key To A Long And Happy LifeEveryone always wants to know what’s the secret to having a long and happy life.
For Avis Gunter, who celebrated her 94th birthday Friday with friends and fellow Republicans at the Kosciusko County GOP Headquarters in downtown Warsaw, it’s keeping busy.
“Just keep busy. You have to, otherwise your body goes,” she said.
She has a garden. She ushers at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts part of the time. She is active at her church, volunteers at the food pantry in Silver Lake and works Friday at the GOP Headquarters. She’s involved with the Kosciusko County Historical Society.
Her family has been a part of Kosciusko County for generations.
Gunter was born Jan. 7, 1928, to Avery and Lucy Kimes, of Claypool.
“My grandfather was the county commissioner there at Clay Township at one time. And then I finished out his term. No, not really,” she joked, laughing, in an interview before the headquarters got packed with well-wishers.
“The farm I have, we bought in 1888. It’s been in the family almost 150 years,” Gunter said.
As part of her busy schedule, she now takes care of her great-grandchildren, serving often as their taxi driver. Yes, she still drives.
Gunter went to elementary and high school in Claypool, all in the same building. She graduated in 1946, about a year after the end of World War II.
“I just remember that gas was rationed and we were still able to have basketball games and such. But, sugar was rationed and a lot of things were rationed at that time. Tires, especially, if you had vehicles where the tires weren’t very good, that was a problem,” she said.
During her senior year in high school, she met her husband, Everett “Red” Gunter. She was a soda jerk at the drug store and, after he came home from service, he would sit at the counter every afternoon. She was 18, he was 10 years older.
“He was a nice guy. And he was home from service. A lot of his friends weren’t home yet, and so his afternoons were spent on the drug store stool,” Gunter said.
At that time, the name of the drug store was Huffman’s Drug Store.
“I had started working for Sandy Shoemaker, who originally owned the drug store, and then the Huffmans bought it out. It was two different places. One was right on the corner where there’s apartments now in Claypool, and the other drug store was down where Somewhere Else restaurant is right now,” she said.
Avis and Everett, who met in 1945, married in 1946. They lived in Fort Wayne for a while before coming back to Warsaw and then Avis became a farmer’s wife.
She got involved in politics and government when she was 21 years old. She was vice chairman of the Young Republicans at that time.
“The reason I got a job at the courthouse was Carl Zimmer, who was the county assessor, needed someone to type. And Pauline Jordan, of course I worked for her in the Republican party for years, she said, ‘Well, try calling Avis Gunter.’ So he called me on Friday and I started working on Monday because I could type,” she recalled.
She was appointed to county assessor after Zimmer decided to retire. It was her first political office and she served in that position for 21 years.
She worked hard to get the assessment on the books so there was money to operate. “And I thought, ‘Huh. I’m going to run for a position where I can help see where it’s going to be spent.’ So that was when I ran for county commissioner,” Gunter said.
All together, she gave the county 43 of her 94 years – 10 years as a deputy, 21 as county assessor and 12 years as a commissioner.
As for the biggest change she’s seen in over nine decades, Gunter said, “It seems like there’s not personality in people. I think it’s changed more than anything else. People used to be really friendly. Now, everybody’s in their own little world almost. I just don’t understand it. I really don’t.”
One of her best memories was “when we were known as Petticoat Junction,” she said. “There was five of us girls in this county, county officials, and they called us Petticoat Junction.” Those five were Gunter, Jean Northenor, Katherine Teel, Ruth Hoppus and Jean Messmore. Gunter said “Petticoat Junction” was known as a “woman’s thing” and they just laughed about it.
She “truly” enjoyed her 12 years as southern district county commissioner, she said. “Because I worked with so many nice guys.”
“I got out of my job as being commissioner on the 31st of December. And on the second day of January, I started taking care of a little great-grandson that was 6 weeks old and Gretchen just kept having more kids, so that guaranteed a job,” Gunter said with her well-known laugh.
Northenor, sitting beside Gunter, said when she and Gunter disagreed, it was because they both wanted the same thing to end, “but a different way of getting there.”
Northenor said if she and Gunter “ever took the whole bunch on, there was trouble.”
“I don’t know anybody – and I kind of think, as old as I am, I know everybody – I don’t know anybody more dedicated to county government and this community than Avis Gunter. All those folks I know. There’s a lot of them that are dedicated out there, but I don’t know one who is as dedicated as Avis Gunter,” Northenor said.
Gunter told Northenor she was thinking just the other day how, when she was assessor, she was the first one in the whole state who put the plat books with the aerial photos down in the surveyor’s office. “Now they do it all the time,” she said.
Northenor responded, “Well, you were just first at everything because you were involved statewide and if something was going on someplace, you latched on to it.”
She said she and Gunter have some “beautiful, wonderful” memories from their time in the old county courthouse.
“Together, we all were a group, every elected position. We all worked together,” Northenor said. “We would have a meeting every month, just of elected officials, in that courthouse. No county chairmen, nobody like that. Just elected officials to talk about what’s going on here, there, how can we help. But we were united like family.”
“We cared about one another,” Gunter agreed.
Mike Ragan, Kosciusko County Republican Party Central Committee chairman, has known Gunter for 10-12 years, but has known about her all his life. He said he believes every Republican in the county knows her and Northenor.
“She’s awesome,” Ragan said of Gunter. “She’s, of course, a wonderful Republican. She’s got strong principles. She’s unyielding on integrity.”
He said Gunter has always given him advice and he always takes it. “I’m blessed to be able to have people like Avis and Jean and Sue Ann (Mitchell) to lean on,” he said, calling them the matriarchs of the county. “Kosciusko County is blessed to have them.”
Mitchell, county councilwoman, said she’s known Gunter since fall 1976. “Avis and I have been wonderful friends ever since. Obviously, following her as the county assessor was a pretty big deal, and then she and I traveled a lot together. We’ve just been great, great friends. She’s got to be the mom figure for me,” she said.
County Auditor Michelle Puckett said she’s known Gunter for the 22 years she’s worked at the county.
“Avis has the most pure servant heart and radiant smile that I’ve ever seen. And if you’re lucky enough to hear that laugh, it’ll change your whole day,” Puckett said.
