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Contributed by Ronald Hilton (need new email address please)

20 Presidents, Two world wars, Have passed, In her lifetime
Editor's Note: Seniors have a lifetime of experiences
to share. Each week, The Dothan Eagle profiles a different Senior citizen in the wiregrass.
By Matt Moore
Eagle Staff Writer date estimated at 1992

Cottondale --- A lot of things have happened since Mamie Lammons of Cottondale was born.
Twenty different presidents have sat in the White House, two world wars have been waged and mankind has set foot

upon the moon. When Ms. Lammons, 101 was born on May 31 1892 Benjamin Harrison was president, the Spanish -

American War of 1898 was six years hence and farmers were flocking to the Wiregrass to make their money in King Cotton,

 unaware of the impending bowl weevil.  A native of Georgia, Ms. Lammons has lived there, in Hartford and now

Cottondale, but her heart remains true to her native state.  "I’m a Georgia girl," she said with a grin. "I was born in

Harrison(Haralson) County about six miles from Buchanan."  She said the times have changed since she was a little girl,

especially the schools that have now become sprawling multi-room campuses that can sometimes have all the problems

 of inner-city slums, but it wasn’t like that when she started school."I started my schooling at what they called the Flatwood School House. It was a one-room schoolhouse that everyone went to," she said.  "We got along pretty good with it I reckon." She

 explained that all of the kids in the schoolhouse had to sit on their own chairs ("It wasn’t seats, more like in a church,

" Ms. Lammons said) and each grade sat in its own rows. All in all it was a good arrangement, except when the boys would

try to play tricks on the girls, actions that Ms. Lammons recalls with clarity.  "Sitting right behind me and my younger sister was

 a row of boys and girls and there was this boy who pulled my sister’s hair," she said. "He would just reach up and grab and

 pull it." She said she warned him not to do that to her sister anymore, but "he delighted in reaching up and giving her hair a pull. The next time he did it, I just slammed him across the head with my book as hard as a little girl could and he didn’t pull her hair

anymore," Ms. Lammons said, suppressing a slight chuckle.  Ms. Lammons came to Hartford on Jan 1, 1901 after her father,

received word that the land was good for growing crops, and he tired of the rocky soil of Harrison County" They had told him

 how good the land was out there, so he sold out what he had and moved to Alabama," she said.  The move introduced her to train travel and egg sandwiches for the first time, and she was quite impressed with both of them. "My father and oldest brother

came down on a wagon," she said. "On January 1, me and momma and my two brothers went down by train, it was my

 first time, and when we stopped at Albany, Ga., it was time for lunch. Of course there weren’t any cafes by the train station".
Ms. Lammons said the train conductors came through the cars offering sandwiches for sale and she bought an egg

salad sandwich. "I’ve liked them ever since," she said.

Now residing in Cottondale with her oldest son Milan, 82 Ms. Lammons said she wouldn’t change anything about her life.

She had four children, worked in the fields for her father and then her husband, Duncan Lammons, made sure her children

received an education and waited anxious nights while her husband was on patrol as the Hartford Police Department’s Chief

 from 1931 until his death in 1951.

The secret to her long life, which she said was noted on NBC-TV’s "Today Show" by weatherman/personality Willard Scott,

on her 101st birthday in May, she said it was simple."Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve lived a normal life, and I’ve always been active,

 I’ve just always been active," she said. And she has no complaints about the turns her life has given her, including outliving

three of her four children and her husband."I live a good life," she said. I’ve had my ups and downs, but so has everybody

 else."

Mamie Hilton Lammons, was the daughter of Augustus H. Hilton and Lucy Janie Moon. Augustus son of James F Hilton and

 Nancy Ann Wilson Hilton.

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