Naomi Neville just turned 100, but that milestone has not dampened her spirit or her memory.
    As she recently awaited a quiet family celebration in the home where she has lived for more than 80 years, Neville recalled adventures she experienced as early as 3 years old.
    She clearly remembers growing up in Excelsior, in Candler County, where she lived on a farm and her mother made butter for sale. When there was butter left over, “Daddy let us trade it in the grocery store for whatever we wanted,” she said.
    Sometimes it was candy, but the curious young Naomi often chose to experiment with foods uncommon to those living the farm life.
    “I would try things like jello and Ovaltine,” she said. “It was like coffee, but not as good.”
    Today’s children may find it hard to believe, but something as mundane as corn flakes cereal was a treat to Neville and her siblings.
    “We would buy a box and eat the whole thing,” she said.
    Peanut butter and molasses kisses, wrapped in paper and costing 15 cents a quart, were another treat, she said.
    Neville was only around 3 when her father gave her older brother a yearling colt to train.
    “He trained that horse so gentle, you could lead it around on a string,” she said.
    But when her brother hitched the colt to a cart, with Neville inside awaiting a ride, the gentle horse became frightened and ran away.
    “He headed right for the church yard,” she recalled, the 97-year-old memory still fresh in her mind. “The church yard had posts buried so cars wouldn’t drive on the grass and cause ruts. That horse went right between two of those posts.”
    The cart, however, was too wide, and the inevitable happened: The crash sent Neville flying, “but I was OK.”
    Her childhood was obviously filled with fun and adventure, judging from the smile on her face as she told tale after tale of those times. Once, her older sister talked her into stealing the car key from her father’s key ring.
    Her parents were going to visit family, and her father asked his wife to remind him to take the keys so the children didn’t drive the family car. However, Neville sneaked into her father’s room and removed the car key from the ring of keys, replacing the ring back in her father’s pants pocket.
    “I taught myself to drive” by sitting in the car for hours “shifting gears,” she said.
    With so much practice, Neville had an idea of what to do behind the wheel. After her parents left for their trip, she took the car and drove her siblings all over the countryside to visit friends, she said.
    Then there was the story about the bobtail calves.
    Neville’s father raised cattle, and one of the children’s favorite pastimes was to grab a calf by the tail, allowing the frightened animal to run and drag them, “slinging us around,” she said.
    The only thing was, it harmed the calves. The children didn’t realize it, but doing so caused the calves’ tails to separate and break, and the disjointed tails rotted and fell off.
    “Daddy had a herd of bobtailed calves and never could figure out why,” she said with a chuckle.
    As she grew older, Neville started dating and met Sam Neville, the man she would marry. They did so Dec. 5, 1934, and Neville moved into the stately farm house on Neville Dairy Road near the Evans County line.
    The pair soon began operating a dairy farm, milking 240 cows twice daily and selling the milk to Starling Dairy in Savannah. Neville worked as a farm wife but admitted it wasn’t as hard a life as some.
    She cooked, cleaned, painted the house as needed and raised two children, Martha Ann and Sam Jr.
    At first, “we ate a lot of turnips and cornbread,” she said.
    But the farm prospered, and life was good, she said.
    Often, people turning 100 years old credit hard work, faith and healthy habits for reasons they made it that far in life. Neville isn’t much different, except she claims the main reason for reaching 100 is good, clean living.
    “I’ve never been with anybody but my husband,” she said, adding that she feels promiscuity and living together without being married are not good habits.
    She never smoked, never drank alcohol, and “always had a good garden” where healthy foods were grown to put on the family table, she said.
    The Nevilles operated the dairy for 30 years “until the government bought all the dairy cows” and put many small family-operated dairies out of business, she said.
    The family leased the farmland to others afterward.
    She has taken technological changes in stride, moving from living with light from kerosene lamps to having electricity. She remembers telephone party lines, aluminum foil on TV antennas and sneaking sugar cane from her father’s plot to chew as she and her brothers and sisters sat on top of the barn roof.
    But she also enjoys a power chair that helps her navigate her home, where she still lives today. She plays solitaire and enjoys word search puzzles and watching modern TV programs and has no problem using a cellphone, she said.
    Young people today “don’t know what hard times are,” she said. “I was a tomboy, climbing trees and riding horses. I could put the gear on a mule just as good as any man.”
    But today, children spend too much time inside and don’t benefit from the kind of activities she enjoyed as a child, she said.
    Her advice to those who hope to live to be 100? Don’t drink or smoke, don’t be promiscuous and seize every available opportunity to have adventure and fun, Neville said.

    Holli Deal Saxon may be reached at (912) 489-9414.