GREENVILLE —Louise Partin, born Nov. 4, 1915, in Tinsley, Kentucky, will be celebrating her 100th birthday on Nov. 7 with a gathering of friends and family at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post on North Ohio Street in Greenville at 4 p.m. Those attending are asked to bring a dish to share.
Partin, who grew up in a mining town, was married for 67 years to husband, Robert, in Kentucky, until his death.
She said her parents approved of him.
“Dad thought Robert was a good worker and a respectable man,” Louise said.
The couple met after he came from behind a light pole and asked if he could take her home.
“I said, ‘Sure,’” she recalled. “Then, went we got to my house, he said he wasn’t going to kiss me because he was afraid of my dad.”
The Partin family moved to Darke County from Kentucky on an invite from his five brothers.
They first lived at the Black School house near the Wabash Dam near New Weston, and spent most of their life in their second home, the Rossburg School House on the east end of this northern Darke Count hamlet.
Together, they had nine children, Marion of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Jimmy of Georgia, Danny of Baltimore, Elena Smith of Ansonia, Rick of Florida and Sandy Partin of Greenville. Sons Bobby, Joe and Jerry are deceased.
“It was wonderful raising my kids,” she said. “All of them are my favorite.”
She also has 13 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.
Partin, who has lived in Greenville for almost nine years, retired from Fram after 22 years. Her first employment here in Ohio was as a cashier/checkout at the G.C. Murphy Co. in downtown Greenville. She also worked at an egg plant and a tomato factory.
A member of the Baptist Church in Kentucky, she was the third oldest o four brothers and three sisters and is the only one living. No one else in the family, she said, lived to be 100.
In her spare time, she spends time solving Seek and Find words, and also enjoys candy, especially Sugar Daddys and Milky Ways. And, she said she loves to stay home and loves the Lord.
“I think I could eat candy until it runs out of my ears,” said Partin, who said her closest friends are Doris Elson and Rosemary Brodrick, both former Fram employees.
She said she is looking forward to seeing all the people at her party.
“All of the kids are coming in,” said daughter Sandy. “We celebrate all her birthdays, but this is the biggest one. We had walk-ins on her other birthdays.”
Why does she think she’s lived so long?’
It was God’s will,” Partin said.
Her health appears fine, but she said her memory is not as good as it once was.
“She likes to joke and she’s an excellent cook,” said Sandy.
Louise’s favorite childhood memory is climbing the mountains of Kentucky.
“My sisters and I got on a cliff and my oldest sister couldn’t climb,” she recalled. “So we got a big stick and pulled her right up it.”
“She raised half of Rossburg,” Bob Partin said of his grandmother. “They called her mother. She was renown for her biscuits and gravy.”
