OT: Belarus Woman Celebrates 116th Birthday

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

Interesting diet this lady lives on. :-) Butch

 

Belarus Woman Celebrates 116th Birthday

By YURAS KARMANAU

 

Her photo at this URL .. would require some highlighting and pasting.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1120 & idq=/ff/story/0001%2\

F20040505%2F1505772463.htm & sc=1120 & photoid=20040505MOSB105

 

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A woman believed to be the oldest in the world

celebrated her 116th birthday Wednesday in the former Soviet republic of

Belarus.

 

" I'll drink to my own health with pleasure, " said Hanna Barysevich, a

former farm worker who lives in a house outside the Belarusian capital

Minsk.

 

" I'm tired of living already, but God still hasn't collected me, " she

said with a smile.

 

Barysevich was born on May 5, 1888, in the village of Buda, 37 miles

east of Minsk, according to her passport. Her parents were poor,

landless peasants.

 

" From my early childhood I didn't know anything but physical labor, "

said Barysevich, who never learned to read or write. She worked in a

kolkhoz, or collective farm, until age 95, then moved to the house she

shares with her 78-year-old daughter Nina.

 

Barysevich lived through the Bolshevik Revolution, two world wars and

the collapse of the Soviet Union. The worst period for her was the reign

of dictator Josef Stalin: Her husband Ippolit was declared an ``enemy of

the people'' for allegedly harming the collective farm, arrested and

taken to Siberia. He was never heard from again.

 

She raised her three children on her own, including throughout World War

II, when she used to take her family to the woods outside the village to

hide from the Nazis.

 

" A lot of men courted me but I preferred to live on my own, " she said.

 

Today, Barysevich moves with difficulty but unaided. She complains of

occasional headaches and worsening vision " but nothing else bothers me. "

 

She attributes her longevity to genes: Her paternal grandmother was 113

when she died. As to diet, Barysevich prefers simple village food:

homemade sausages, pork fat, milk and bread.

 

Daughter Nina said her mother has a good appetite, a tough character and

very strong nerves.

 

" Throughout my long life, I understood that it isn't worth it to get

upset and take everything too close to the heart, " Barysevich said.

 

For her birthday, she hoped for a raise in her monthly pension, equal to

about $50, and a chance to go to a Catholic church for confession.

 

Last month, the Guinness Book of Records recognized a 114-year-old

Puerto Rican as the world's oldest living woman. Barysevich said she'd

never thought of applying for the distinction.

 

 

05/05/04 15:05

 

© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[Guest guest]

Oh, yeah. My grandmother ate all kinds of things that would make me balloon

just thinking about it. And I would be able to hear my arteries clogging as I

was eating. LOL! But my grandparents worked in the fields from sun up to sun

down. I think that is the key. These people did hard work most of their lives.

We don't generally get that kind of workout now days.

 

Tracy--who needs to go make some biscuits and gravy now. :-(

 

New email address: rubberjunkie

 

*Some people only dream of angels; we held one in our arms.*

Remembering Jacob March 8 - 9, 1996

Our Angel: http://sids-network.org/fp/jacob.htm

-

Sharon

Wednesday, May 05, 2004 8:12 PM

Re: OT: Belarus Woman Celebrates 116th Birthday

 

 

On her diet: my Grandma lived to be 95 and I think ate biscuits and gravy at

least two or three times a week. And we are talking sausage gravy. She lived

in Kentucky/Tennessee all her life and convinced my DH that the sausage gravy

and biscuits was the secret to a long life. She failed to mention the widening

of certain body parts ;^)

 

 

 

Sharon

 

" You must be the change you wish to see in the world "

Mohandas Ghandi

 

 

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