March 27, 2003
Irwinton woman turns 100, recalls her past in county
By Cheryl Mitchell - The Union-Recorder

IRWINTON - Alma Rackley turned 100 years old Sunday and for the retired social studies teacher, it was a day that will go down in her history book as one of joy and happiness.

"I feel mighty fine today. I have had a wonderful life," Rackley said as she sat in her wheelchair, recalling the decades she has seen come and go.

She lived most of her life in Wilkinson County, she said.

"I had a big family," she said. "There were 10 of us children. And when we would go out, I would look at other families and wonder where all the children were. I thought it was normal to have so many brothers and sisters, because our table was always filled, with momma at one end and daddy at the other."

Rackley came from a family of farmers. Her grandparents had survived the Civil War. Her grandmother would sit on the front porch, shelling peas and telling of the war days when grandpa had to leave home, she said.

"They had to give up their menfolk. The men had to go and fight and the women were left home to do the farming and look after the children," Rackley said. When the war ended, her grandfather's commanding officer gave his troops the choice of either a mule or an acre of land.

Rackley's grandfather chose the farmland and each year after that, her grandfather would buy an acre of land to add to it. Rackley was born at the family's Irwinton homestead in 1903.

Her mother had four boys and six girls. Rackley was the third child born. She and her brothers and sisters attended school in a one-room school next door to the Mount Caramel Baptist Church. They traveled to school by horse and buggy each day, she said.

"When I was 5 years old, we attended McIntyre Baptist Church. I remember Daddy was a saw mill man and he had a two-horse wagon. And he had two pretty mules hitched to that wagon," Rackley said. "Daddy would back it up to the house and yell 'All right mamma, you and the children come on now.' And mother would come out with her chair. She sat up there where daddy was driving. She faced all of us as we sat on the floor."

Only 12 people would be in that buggy when they left home, but by the time they got to the church, there would be 24. On the way to church down the dirt road, her daddy would make several stops and pick up neighbors and other children, "which accounted for a buggy full" by the time they got to Sunday school, she said.

Rackley became a social studies teacher, possibly because of being surrounded by children all her life, she said. She taught school in Mount Vernon, Glenwood and Vidalia.

"I taught 37 years," Rackley said proudly. "I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grades and I enjoyed it."

When she began teaching in Montgomery County, Rackley taught in a three-teacher school. They had about 30 students and took turns teaching lessons throughout the day, she said. After retirement, she came back home to a town she could hardly recognize, she added.

"Irwinton has really changed from a small town of four or five homes and post office. You go there now and we have a beautiful courthouse and new jail and it just looks like a different place," Rackley said. "I came back from Vidalia when I retired and said 'Oh my goodness, how you have grown.' It looks like a city now compared to when I was growing up."

As Rackley celebrated her 100th birthday at Green Acres Nursing Home, she turned her eyes to the television. As she watching soldiers fighting in Iraq, her thoughts turned serious.

"We lost a little brother during World War II. He was in Manila. He and another little fellow volunteered. He wanted to do something adventurous. The Japanese had already bombed Pearl Harbor. ... It took momma a long time to get his body back, but she did and he's now buried in our family cemetery," Rackley said. "I've been alive long enough to know that war doesn't solve our problems. This war here, it looks like to me they could have compromised some way."

Even at 100, she hasn't stopped trying to teach others about historical facts, she said.

"If you want to live to be 100, I would say train your mind to take care of yourself and others," Rackley said. "Not only learn it, do it and you will live a good long time."
 

Permission to reprint story from
Debbie Williams, Publisher, The Union-Recorder 3/29/2006
 
 

Note: Alma Hatfield Rackley was the daughter of Samuel Eugene and Sara Emily Gibson Hatfield. She died Feb. 16, 2004 and is buried at Long Pond Cemetery in Montgomery County, Georgia. She was survived by a sister in law Melba Elkins of West Palm Beach Florida and numerous nieces and nephews. The Macon Telegraph  Feb. 17, 2004