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A 'Wonderful Life' Continues

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By ANGELA DELGADO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 13, 2007

Updated: 10/11/2007 07:55 pm

CARROLLWOOD - Today, Sallie Duprow is going to have the celebration of a lifetime, or two.

The milky skinned, blue-eyed beauty is turning the big 1-0-0 and family members and friends from across the nation are attending the celebration.

'We tease her and say she could lie and say she's 65 and nobody would question it,' said Lisa Owen, activities director at Shady Palms Retirement Homes, where Duprow has lived since April. 'She doesn't hardly have a wrinkle. I think I'm more forgetful than she is.'

As her niece June Westlake said, Duprow is as sharp as a tack, and with the life she has lead, it's a great thing she can remember it.

Duprow was born in a log cabin in Beebe, Ark., on Oct. 13, 1907. The daughter of a farmer who raised corn and cotton, she was the fifth out of nine brothers and sisters: Carl, Carrie, Daisy, Grace, Dick, Charlie, Nina and Margie. Nina Hefner, 93, is her only living sibling. Their eldest sister, Carrie, lived to be 101.

Duprow and her brothers and sisters would pick wild fruit to make preserves for the family. They also picked strawberries, sold for two or three cents a quart, to buy clothing. The family made its own soap, churned its own butter and raised sorghum to make syrup.

'It was wonderful,' Duprow said. 'We were a close, close family, and what's left of us still are.'

Duprow graduated from high school and taught in a two-room school for two years. She began attending college but stopped because she didn't want to burden her brothers with the expense, she said. Her dream was to become a nurse, and although she later worked in retail, she worked in a factory during World War II.

Aside from her family, Duprow also had a special neighbor to keep her company. Alton Jack Williams was born five days before Duprow, and almost instantly the two were inseparable.

'He told me more than once he loved me all his life,' she said.

The pair became childhood sweethearts, and when they were in ninth grade Williams gave Duprow a black onyx ring she wears today. The couple married when they were 22 and adopted a newborn son, John, after 16 years of marriage. Their son died two years ago at age 60.

When the family was living in Michigan, Williams died after 29 years of marriage. He was 60 years old.

About eight years later Duprow met her second husband, Rollin Duprow, through a neighbor. They dated six weeks before they married, and it lasted 27 years. He died at age 98.

'I often wonder which one I loved the most,' she said.

Duprow's secret to a lasting marriage: love.

'I think you have to really love somebody to get along with them,' she said. 'I think you have to give and take a lot sometimes, and that's hard to do.'

'She had two adoring husbands that loved her dearly,' said Westlake, 73.

Duprow moved to Tampa in June 2006 to live with Westlake, but after several falls, Duprow had to use a wheelchair most of the time. Westlake couldn't move her up and down her home stairs, so Duprow began living in Shady Palms, Westlake said.

Duprow said she is happy to live in Florida and that old friends from Michigan call and write to her.

She can't do some of the things she did when she was younger. Duprow said being waited on is one perk of turning 100.

This afternoon, Duprow will be plenty waited on during her celebration. Although Westlake, 73, wants to keep mum about the party's location, she did say there will be cake, punch and food for the expected 50 to 75 guests, some of whom haven't seen Duprow in decades. The guests will each contribute their favorite story about Duprow and place it in a memory book.

'I tried to be a loving, understanding person and to be good to everybody,' Duprow said. 'I do have a lot of friends, and I think I've made a lot since I've been here. I've had a wonderful life, two wonderful husbands and a precious son.'

'God's just been good to me; that's all I can say,' she said.

Reporter Angela Delgado can be reached at (813) 865-1501 or adelgado@tampatrib.com.

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