This article and photo was printed in The Greensboro Record, Friday, December 22, 1967

 "AUNT FANNY HATES WAR, MINI-SKIRTS"

Mrs. C. G. Sherwood [Ida Ruth Reese, born December 21, 1877, the daughter of Samuel Henry Reese and Mary Isabelle Story], a bright lady with a sharp wit and a hearty God-fearing philosophy of life, celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday and last night at 3121 Collier Drive where she makes her home with her son, J. C. Sherwood, and his wife Pauline. I visited this lady of 90 Christmases who spends most of her hours in a bright sitting room with her television set, radio and a very talkative yellow and green canary, "Pete."

Aunt Fannie, as she is known to all, told me when she ventures from her rocking chair, it is usually to visit her church, Westover Presbyterian, one of the most important things in her life. This doesn't mean that she does not have strong opinions on what's going on in the outside world. "The mini-skirts, they show everything but possible. I never did wear my clothes' short. My best black dress is too long but I'm not going to do anything about it. Guess I'm too old."

As Aunt Fannie rocked, she held a lap full of birthday cards and reminisced about her Christmases as "a country girl at her home place about nine miles out on the Burlington Highway." Her dark eyes twinkled as she recalled, "On Christmas we would hang our stockings and they would be filled with a little candy. The last doll Santa brought me had a china head. "Heavenly sunlight," she went on enthusiastically, "I remember going on 'possum and rabbit hunts on Christmas but we didn't bring back any- thing but skinned knees from falling over logs."

Aunt Fannie owned only one tube of lipstick in her whole life and disliked it so she gave it to her sons to decorate themselves for Halloween. Spry enough to take care of herself completely, she looks very young for her 90 years, has amazingly few wrinkles. Her beauty secrets are simple. "I always wash my face twice a day with Palmolive soap and then use just a drop of baby oil on it." The news of the moment is most important to her. She reads the newspapers with big magnifying glass.

Constantly she hopes and prays for peace in Vietnam. Her only grandson, Donnie Sherwood, who "always takes time to kiss his grandmother no matter who is present," recently received his first greeting notice from the Army. He is the only male left to carry on the Sherwood name. "Some people think I will live through eternity," she says, "but one day I'll slip away." Her eyes began to fill with tears and her lips trembled briefly at this thought, but then she smiled and said, "But I'm ready, as I left her setting straight and regal like a Queen Mother wrapped in her white wool shawl, the daylight falling softly on her wonderful face, I knew I had a visit to the past of a very special a "country girl" who was very much "with it" as far as the present is concerned.