\n Anna Giles, 99, handed Boston Post Cane<\/p>\n

By SHIRA SCHOENBERG
\n
\nMonitor staff<\/p>\n

February 16. 2008 12:51AM<\/p>\n

Anna Giles is a country girl. Growing up on a Georgia farm in
\nthe early 1900s, her family grew tobacco, cotton and pecans. When
\nGiles moved to Boscawen 70 years later, she covered her property
\nwith gardens.<\/p>\n

“Neighbors would say, why are you growing so much?” Giles
\nrecalled. “I said, I can them for winter. I don’t run to the store
\nevery time I want a can of beans. I got them.”<\/p>\n

Giles, 99, was honored with the Boston Post Cane on Thursday, as
\nthe oldest resident of Boscawen. The cane was fashioned by the
\nBoston Post in 1909. According to a town history, the newspaper
\npresented 700 inscribed, gold-headed canes to New England
\ncommunities as a way for towns to respect their oldest
\ncitizens.<\/p>\n

“It’s a congratulations for making it this far,” said town
\nadministrator Michael Wright.<\/p>\n

In Boscawen, the cane has been held by 18 residents, most
\nrecently Edna Clark, who died last month. Holders of the cane carry
\nit in a parade on Old Home Day.<\/p>\n

In Giles, the cane recognizes a homemaker who dedicated her life
\nto caring for family – her daughter, her granddaughter and her
\nhusband.<\/p>\n

Giles was born on Aug. 29, 1908, daughter of a prominent family.
\nHer father, Clayton Morris, was one of the first settlers in
\nCharlotte, Ga., according to Giles’s grand<\/p>\n

daughter Pat Jenkins. The family farmed their estate, and
\nGiles’s grandmother operating a boarding house. Her mother was a
\nseamstress. They cooked in cast-iron pots over the fire.<\/p>\n

Giles attended a country school populated by “farm kids,” she
\nsaid. The town was full of large families and Giles’s grandmother
\nhad nine children. Giles had one brother and a sister who died as a
\nchild.<\/p>\n

“I hated school; it was a place to go to play,” Giles said. She
\nstayed until 9th grade then left to work in a restaurant owned by
\nher cousin.<\/p>\n

Giles got into trouble often, Jenkins said. She used to defy her
\nparents’ warnings and sneak out of the house when her parents were
\ndriving the bulls in. Once, she was sitting on a fence when a bull
\nknocked her off, Jenkins said. Another time, Giles was in her
\nbedroom when lightning came through the window and burned her back.
\nShe was taken to the hospital in a horse and buggy.<\/p>\n

At 17, Giles married Eli Fulton Mullis and gave birth to her
\nonly child, a daughter. But the marriage did not last. “I was too
\nyoung, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Giles said.<\/p>\n

She left Georgia because of the Ku Klux Klan. Jenkins said Giles
\nand a friend were coming home late one night and took a shortcut
\nthrough a field. There, they saw the Klan hanging a black man. She
\nwas asked to testify but, Jenkins said, “Back then, you didn’t
\ntestify. They’d go after your family.” Giles left Georgia and
\nmoved to South Carolina.
\n\n<\/p>\n

It was in South Carolina that she found her second husband. “In
\nthe country down there, everyone knows everyone else, like a
\nfamily,” Giles said. “Some of them married cousins, but I didn’t.”
\nInstead, Giles married a Yankee. Harvey Sias Giles was a Marine
\nfrom Danvers, Mass., stationed in South Carolina. Giles was a
\nwaitress, and the first time he tried to talk to her, she slammed
\nthe door on him. But he persisted. “He used to come in for his
\nlunch and supper and, before he went home at night, sometimes he
\nwalked me home,” Giles said. They married in 1931 and stayed
\ntogether for 76 years.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the couple moved to Danvers, Mass. Except for her
\ndays in the restaurant business, Giles never worked outside the
\nhome. Her daughter, Reba, was unable to have children, and a
\nbotched surgery left her in need of care. Reba adopted Jenkins and
\nJenkins’s brother, but was put into a nursing home when Jenkins
\nwas 6 years old and died at age 54.<\/p>\n

Giles cared for her daughter when she was sick, then raised her
\ngranddaughter. She took care of the chickens and did the baking and
\ncooking, Jenkins recalled. Harvey Giles worked nights as a security
\nguard.<\/p>\n

Giles was also strict, Jenkins said. When she wanted Jenkins to
\ncome home, she would ring a bell. If Jenkins didn’t come, “she’d
\nstart hollering,” Jenkins said. “I knew by the sound of her voice
\nhow far I could push it.”<\/p>\n

When Jenkins was in high school, the family bought a camp in
\nEnfield and spent summers there and winters in Georgia. They bought
\nthe house in Boscawen in 1978, where Giles still lives with Jenkins
\nand her husband. Jenkins’s two children are grown up, and Giles
\nhas two great-great grandchildren.<\/p>\n

In the old days, Giles recalled, the area was woodland and
\nfarms. There were fields where her neighbor’s house now stands.
\nGiles spent time reading, gardening and canning. She grew string
\nbeans, butter beans, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, corn.<\/p>\n

When she was younger, she and her husband would drive across the
\nstate. “I’ve been all over New Hampshire, I don’t think there’s
\nany road I missed,” she said.<\/p>\n

When her husband developed Alzheimer’s, Giles took care of him
\nuntil he entered a nursing home.<\/p>\n

Now, Jenkins said when the weather is nice, she takes her
\ngrandmother to see the state’s lakes and mountains. Giles loves
\nwatching bull riding and seeing people working in the fields. She
\nwants to ride in a helicopter and looks forward to spring so she
\ncan start walking.<\/p>\n

“I told her, you might be 99, but you can still enjoy life,
\nlearn things, see things you haven’t experienced yet,” Jenkins
\nsaid.<\/p>\n

But Giles said she is mostly content to stay home. “I don’t
\ncare anything about running around,” she said. “Why would I want to
\ngo out? I’ve seen everything.”<\/p>\n

Of all the places she’s visited, which is her favorite?<\/p>\n

“Right here, right where I am,” she said.<\/p>\n

Copyright 1997-2008
\n
\nConcord Monitor and New Hampshire Patriot
\n
\nP.O. Box 1177
\n
\nConcord NH 03302
\n
\n603-224-5301<\/p>\n

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Anna Giles, 99, handed Boston Post Cane By SHIRA SCHOENBERG Monitor staff February 16. 2008 12:51AM Anna Giles is a country girl. Growing up on a Georgia farm in the early 1900s, her family grew tobacco, cotton and pecans. When Giles moved to Boscawen 70 years later, she covered her property with gardens. “Neighbors would… More \u00bbA salute for the journey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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