Gris: Not your average 88-year-old
BOLINGBROKE -- Elizabeth “Libba” Baird has a birthday today.
She shares her birthday with someone famous -- former President Jimmy Carter.
Of course, it could be argued that Carter shares his birthday with Libba.
He is 90 years old today, and the birthday wishes will be coming in from all over the world. He is the first Democrat U.S. president to reach nonagenarian status. (Republicans Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford each lived to be 93. George H.W. Bush turned 90 on June 12.)
Libba, meanwhile, is 88 going on 18. She will celebrate her special day with considerably less fanfare than the ex-prez.
She will open a few cards and make the 12-mile trip with her brother, Paul, for a birthday meal at the S & S Cafeteria in Macon.
You might recognize her when she goes down the serving line. She will have turnip greens and cracklin’ corn bread on her tray. And maybe side orders of carrot salad and macaroni and cheese.
Libba can put away the groceries for a little lady who tips the scales a couple of biscuits above 100 pounds and barely clears the 5-foot bar on her tiptoes.
Carter was once the leader of the free world, received the Nobel Peace Prize and has a grandson running for governor of Georgia.
But does he still cut his own grass? I think not. Does he carve ducks out of wood, make hand-sewn dolls and crafts out of leather? Did he play the organ for the Free Methodist Church on Napier Avenue for more than 40 years? Has he ever owned a monkey?
If Libba leans to the left, it’s because she’s left-handed, a southpaw from the South.
When it comes to being a free spirit, Libba is decidedly libba-rated.
Her daughter, Jennie Duck, describes her mom as sweet as honeysuckle in one sentence and a drill sergeant in the next breath.
Libba keeps a menagerie of domesticated animals and spends hours every day in a small “music room” at the front of her house. She plays the hymns by heart on the keyboard to keep her mind sharp in the ascent of old age.
Her doctor uses a word to describe her, and it’s off the medical charts.
Spunky.
A widow, Libba still insists on cutting her own grass at her home off a dirt road in east Bolingbroke. It sometimes takes hours for her to finish, especially if she has to fight the dandelions.
“I get out there and cut it the way I like it,” she said. “If you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.”
Don’t look for her to give up her house any time, either. It isn’t that she’s not ready for a nursing home. Her family is convinced the nursing home isn’t ready for her.
She once met Jimmy Carter. She went to Plains to attend one of his Sunday School classes. He posed for a photograph with her group.
“I like him. I respect him,” she said. “There is nothing ‘biggity’ about him ... or his wife.”
Libba has her own tether to Georgia history. She was named Elizabeth after her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Eubanks, whose father, James Eubanks, was Lizella’s first postmaster in the 1890s.
Lizella originally was an Indian settlement in west Bibb County called Warrior. To avoid confusion with another community in the state named Warrior, Eubanks changed the name to “Lizella” after his daughters, Lizzie and Ella.
Libba was such a tomboy that her father claimed she should have been born a boy. She holds dear the childhood memories of visiting her grandmother’s farm in Lizella, where they grew peaches. She affectionately called her “Big Mama.”
Her father worked for the Central Georgia Railroad in Macon until he was called into the ministry. He founded the former Free Methodist Church on Napier where, until recently, Libba was the church organist.
She was the oldest of five children and the only girl. Her brothers Russell, Tom and Paul all became ministers. Her youngest brother, Wesley, followed in her footsteps and was involved in church music ministry.
When I visited with Libba, I quickly learned she is a live wire. She showed me the dozens of wooden ducks she carved -- her duck dynasty goes way back -- and the hand-crafted leather cherry blossoms she once sold in the festival gift shop.
I met some of her dogs and cats. I admired the fish in her aquarium. She told me the story about the pet monkey that didn’t quite work out.
I’m glad I also got to see the dolls she made by hand, as well as the Shirley Temple dolls she has collected since she was a child.
Her daughter, Jennie, told me Libba had a brain hemorrhage at age 32. It happened three months after her youngest child was born. She had to learn to walk again.
So there is a bit of a miracle in this feisty little lady, independent and full of energy. She resists any attempts to be pigeonholed.
“I like to be different,” she said. “I don’t want to be like everybody else.”
Contact Gris at 744-4275 or egrisamore@macon.com.
This story was originally published September 30, 2014 at 10:43 PM with the headline "Gris: Not your average 88-year-old."