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Ides of March is 'lucky' birthday
By B.G. Shields
The ides notwithstanding, Hetty Elizabeth
Anderson Richmond, born
March 15, 1891, attributes
her longevity to good fortune. "I guess I've just
been lucky," says the
quiet-spoken nonagenarian
in her spic-and-span
Sewickley apartment,
where she still does all her
own housework and cooking. She also stitches most
of her own clothes on a sewing machine.
Luck would seem to have
played a part in her being
born the granddaughter of
a man who lived beyond
the century mark. John
Clark Anderson, one of
Sewickley's most beloved
citizens of yesteryear, was
actually 101 when he died
in 1929. On his birthday,
Sewickley merchants closed their stores and gave
Captain Anderson a
celebration second only to
the opening of the old
Sewickley Bridge in 1911.
Little Hettie Anderson
loved her kindly grandfather, who had gone west
with the Gold Rush of 1849
and who was a dashing
river pilot during the Civil
War. She also loved her
grandmother Rosa Hinton
Anderson, who was always
thinking of ways for little
Hettie to come to
Sewickley from El Paso,
Texas, where she spent the
early years of her life with
her mother and father,
LONGEVITY runs in the family of Hetty Anderson Richmond, who poses with a
picture of her grandfather, John C. Anderson of Sewickley, with one of her
grandchildren. Capt. Anderson lived to be 101. (Photo by Daniel M. Miller)
Things were much easier
after her father made a
trip back home in 1905 in
May and decided right then
and there he was coming
back to Sewickley. "I
remember he said, 'I'd
forgotten how beautiful it
is,'" Hettie Richmond
recalls.
Robert L. Anderson
came back home and
pioneered auto sales in the
Sewickley Valley and Hettie Anderson Richmond
has called Sewickley home
ever since.
Pioneering is nothing
new to an Anderson,
though, the family came
here shortly after the last
Indian left and settled in
Leetsdale. Later, Robert
Anderson bought. a big
spread on the heights and
the rest is history.
Hettie Anderson and her
husband Samuel both went
to the old yellow brick
Sewickley school and never
bothered to go on to high
school. "In those days, going to high school was like
going to college," said Mrs.
Richmond. "My aunt
wanted me to continue but
I didn't want to."
The Richmonds raised
two daughters, Julia Richmond McCarthy and Mary
Richmond Archer. Each
has two children.
"I've had a wonderful
life," concluded Mrs. Richmond last week with a pile
of cards on the table to re:
mind of her 95th milestone.
She was feted at a luncheon
by the other tenants in her
building.
Whatever it is, the fact
remains that this ides of
March baby has come a
long, long way.
