SHE SHARED THE CROWN
THE SEVENTY FIFTH POST
Mike
Dear Friends of Olive, I have to tell that we’ve discovered that there was another very old woman who deserves to share the crown of oldest blogger with Olive.
Here she is, an American who passed away at the age of 109 in January, 2008.
She’s further proof that the very old amongst us can do amazing things.
…………………….
……………..
She was once the first woman in America to have her own radio show
…………………..
……………….
Before I tell who she is, let me say how I found her.
I’d gone to Google to see how many citations came up when I typed in Olive Riley.
9 months ago there were about a million references to Olive Riley . Now, it’s up to 2 million 600 thousand Riley citations.
I was stunned. I think we can say that never before has a very old person had such attention.
Of course the citations may not all be about our Ollie, but I plunged 50 pages deep in google, and it was still ‘all about Olive.’ many about her death.
What about photos?
I went to Google images. There they were, the many photos taken of Ollie over the life of her blog, page after page.
………………..
……………….
…………..
……………………
…………………….
…………………..
On page 10, I came across a picture, not of 0live, but of a smiling man captioned, ‘On the passing of Olive Riley’
. The gist of the story was that, according to the smiling man, Olive was “A great lady, Yes, but not the oldest blogger.”
Here’s the naysayer, Marc Middleton, by name, CEO of a site called Growing Bolder and friend of a certain Ruth Hamilton
…………………
. ……………………
Yes, Ruth Hamilton was the person Marc claimed had been, at 109, the oldest blogger.
It seems that Ruth blogged mostly with the help of Journalist, Bill Shafer of WESH Tv. who covered her 108th. birthday and became her helper.
Here’s Bill the foreground, Marc behind in some Florida studio by the looks of it.
…………………..
……………………
It sounds a bit like the story of myself and olive.
…………………
………………..
Ruth at her 109th birthday with the candles to prove it !
With Bill’s help, Ruth blogged exclusively on video according to Growing bolder No text just videos that she was so eager to post.
Like Olive, she was unable to type but thought it was nice to pretend.
Like Olive, her blogging was done with help.
In fact, Ruth did not have a separate blog of her own, but a page on Growing Bolder
……………….
…………………
…………………
……………..
Whatever way it worked till her death in January 2007, Ruth was amazing. Here’s a little of what I found out about her life.
Ruth was born in Alta, Iowa on April 12th. 1898, 18 months before Ollie.
She went to teacher’s college and her first job was in a country schoolhouse. While work might have been remote, her marriage really put her in the swim.
She hitched up with the pitcher (Was she an early cheerleader?) of the Cleveland Indians, World Series champions of 1920.
She married Carter Hamilton pride of the team.
Soon, Carter retired from baseball to become a country doctor. Maybe he was a pediatrician like my favorite American doctor of today, Ron Paul.
As the thirties and the depression hit, Ruth became the first woman to have her own radio show, broadcasting out of Albany, New York, and fiercely pro Roosevelt, I gather.
In the late thirties, she traveled to pre-war Europe, saw Adolf Hitler close up at a rally, and brought back to her radio show the news that he was very scary man who wore patent leather shoes.
On the same trip, in Copenhagen she met the son of Paul Gauguin the painter.
This thrilled her, and set all her reporter skills in motion. She had to get an interview and she did!
That the son, Jean Gauguin, hated his father and claimed to have never seen one of his paintings, added to the journalistic coup for Ruth.
Here’s the bad Paul Gauguin, once a successful stockbroker. He abandoned his Danish wife and kids and escaped to Tahiti.
Looks a bit guilty, doesn’t he? As well he might!
………………..
………………….
Ruth was also a painter as well as broadcaster and roaming journalist. Below, two works of hers.
It looks like she had a slightly primitive touch with the brush, somewhat reminiscent of Gauguin himself.
…………………
………………..
………………….
Ruth next moved to Hollywood where she taught diction to aspiring actors, starlets, preparing them for screen tests.
Her hubby, Carter Hamilton, died in 1949. Ruth then traveled extensively till she aimed for politics back home in the sixties.
In 1964, she was the first woman to be elected to the New Hampshire legislature.,
Once in office, she put an end to orphanages, and cleaned up New Hampshire, the litter, that is, not the politics.
Anyway, that’s enough for you to go on with about Ruth. Look at her clips and see what a wonderful find is this very old Ruth Hamilton.
We’re happy that we can use Olive’s great outreach to celebrate yet another amazing very very old person, another oldie who shows again that…………
you should live to the hilt till the very end!!!
Listen to Ruth’s passion about the world, about hating war, for instance.
She has a powerful thought in one of her tapes; ‘If it was not for senseless wars, men and women who could have changed the world for the better, might have lived.’
Listen to to her tolerance.
On another tape she clearly is angry with Dr. Spock who she felt went to far in permissiveness, but there is no hate for the man.
There’s none of the fury which seems so prevalent today in America, aimed at people you disagree with, hate stirred by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.
Ruth was of course at a different level to Ollie, and yet they would’ve loved each other, I’m sure,
.
Ruth was feisty like Ollie. Ruth had a wicked sense of humor like Ollie, and Ruth hated pretense and snobbishness as did Olive.
By the way, as Eric points out, even if we do find out that Ruth and Olive were blogging at the same time, Olive was still the oldest blogger from Jan. 2008, when Ruth died, till July 2008.
So, we didn’t mislead you after all!
At such great ages as these, titles are often held for a very short time, even days sometimes.
Now, before you look at Ruth’s clips which I’ve lifted from the Growing Bolder site …. (thanks)
growingbolder.com/media/media-view.php?objId=959
You must know that below you’ll meet yet another interesting lady.
Her name is Morgan… She lives in upstate New York and she’s ….. well, she’s 96 years younger than Olive.
Why Morgan has been invited to the blog, I hope will become clear.
Here’s a Ruth story first. Now, you tell me why has this clip had only 24 visits?
……………….
………………
More marvelous videos from Ruth are to be found at .
………………..
growingbolder.com/media/media-view.php?objId=959
…………………………………
Now, let me tell you Morgan’s story. She’s 14, she tells me.
Last week, some short punchy comments began to appear on Ollie’s blog . They were full of “wow’s” and “amazing. ”
Some young person could not believe, for example, that Ollie had had all her teeth out in one go (Neither could I, for that matter)
This same young person, this Morgan, got stuck on Ollie’s pie passion, having no idea what an Aussie meat pie was
When I replied that our unique junk food, the sacred Aussie pie, was made with mince, that just added to the confusion.
For, whereas mince for us means chopped meat, for her it meant diced fruit filling.
…………….
…………….
Anyway, I was intrigued that this young person, this Morgan, had decided to read every one of Ollie’s posts, from the very beginning.
I wrote back and said; “Hey, Morgan , it’s great you’re reading it all
Now, If you send me your comments and if I like them, I’ll make a post out of what you say, perhaps more than one.
Check with your parents, though,” I said, not wanting to arouse suspicions. Her parents were cool, I mean, keen.
As I await Morgan’s jottings, I’ve a theory as to why she got hooked.
It was her Mum who found the blog, she says, mentioned in the NY Times, apparently and passed it on to her daughter.
But why did Morgan read it from the beginning?
Well, it turns out they live in Amish country.
The farm next to their place is Amish and has no electricity going to the house, for instance.
The Amish people use nothing modern. They live like Olive did as a girl.
……………….
………………
Morgan’s folks have to drive very carefully at night, she says, because the Amish buggies have no lights, and it’s easy to run into them.
Ah ha!, I thought, Moran has neighbors who actually live in Olive’s past! No wonder she’s so curious.
I’ve yet to have this theory confirmed . But I can’t wait to find out more from the girl from Amish country.
Her dog, by the way is an Amish beagle. Here’s Morgan and dog,
………………..
…………………
Over to you, Morgan!
Dear Friends of Olive, I have to tell that we’ve discovered that there was another very old woman who deserves to share the crown of oldest blogger with Olive.
Here she is, an American who passed away at the age of 109 in January, 2008.
She’s further proof that the very old amongst us can do amazing things.
…………………….
……………..
She was once the first woman in America to have her own radio show
…………………..
……………….
Before I tell who she is, let me say how I found her.
I’d gone to Google to see how many citations came up when I typed in Olive Riley.
9 months ago there were about a million references to Olive Riley . Now, it’s up to 2 million 600 thousand Riley citations.
I was stunned. I think we can say that never before has a very old person had such attention.
Of course the citations may not all be about our Ollie, but I plunged 50 pages deep in google, and it was still ‘all about Olive.’ many about her death.
What about photos?
I went to Google images. There they were, the many photos taken of Ollie over the life of her blog, page after page.
………………..
……………….
…………..
……………………
…………………….
…………………..
On page 10, I came across a picture, not of 0live, but of a smiling man captioned, ‘On the passing of Olive Riley’
. The gist of the story was that, according to the smiling man, Olive was “A great lady, Yes, but not the oldest blogger.”
Here’s the naysayer, Marc Middleton, by name, CEO of a site called Growing Bolder and friend of a certain Ruth Hamilton
…………………
. ……………………
Yes, Ruth Hamilton was the person Marc claimed had been, at 109, the oldest blogger.
It seems that Ruth blogged mostly with the help of Journalist, Bill Shafer of WESH Tv. who covered her 108th. birthday and became her helper.
Here’s Bill the foreground, Marc behind in some Florida studio by the looks of it.
…………………..
……………………
It sounds a bit like the story of myself and olive.
…………………
………………..
Ruth at her 109th birthday with the candles to prove it !
With Bill’s help, Ruth blogged exclusively on video according to Growing bolder No text just videos that she was so eager to post.
Like Olive, she was unable to type but thought it was nice to pretend.
Like Olive, her blogging was done with help.
In fact, Ruth did not have a separate blog of her own, but a page on Growing Bolder
……………….
…………………
…………………
……………..
Whatever way it worked till her death in January 2007, Ruth was amazing. Here’s a little of what I found out about her life.
Ruth was born in Alta, Iowa on April 12th. 1898, 18 months before Ollie.
She went to teacher’s college and her first job was in a country schoolhouse. While work might have been remote, her marriage really put her in the swim.
She hitched up with the pitcher (Was she an early cheerleader?) of the Cleveland Indians, World Series champions of 1920.
She married Carter Hamilton pride of the team.
Soon, Carter retired from baseball to become a country doctor. Maybe he was a pediatrician like my favorite American doctor of today, Ron Paul.
As the thirties and the depression hit, Ruth became the first woman to have her own radio show, broadcasting out of Albany, New York, and fiercely pro Roosevelt, I gather.
In the late thirties, she traveled to pre-war Europe, saw Adolf Hitler close up at a rally, and brought back to her radio show the news that he was very scary man who wore patent leather shoes.
On the same trip, in Copenhagen she met the son of Paul Gauguin the painter.
This thrilled her, and set all her reporter skills in motion. She had to get an interview and she did!
That the son, Jean Gauguin, hated his father and claimed to have never seen one of his paintings, added to the journalistic coup for Ruth.
Here’s the bad Paul Gauguin, once a successful stockbroker. He abandoned his Danish wife and kids and escaped to Tahiti.
Looks a bit guilty, doesn’t he? As well he might!
………………..
………………….
Ruth was also a painter as well as broadcaster and roaming journalist. Below, two works of hers.
It looks like she had a slightly primitive touch with the brush, somewhat reminiscent of Gauguin himself.
…………………
………………..
………………….
Ruth next moved to Hollywood where she taught diction to aspiring actors, starlets, preparing them for screen tests.
Her hubby, Carter Hamilton, died in 1949. Ruth then traveled extensively till she aimed for politics back home in the sixties.
In 1964, she was the first woman to be elected to the New Hampshire legislature.,
Once in office, she put an end to orphanages, and cleaned up New Hampshire, the litter, that is, not the politics.
Anyway, that’s enough for you to go on with about Ruth. Look at her clips and see what a wonderful find is this very old Ruth Hamilton.
We’re happy that we can use Olive’s great outreach to celebrate yet another amazing very very old person, another oldie who shows again that…………
you should live to the hilt till the very end!!!
Listen to Ruth’s passion about the world, about hating war, for instance.
She has a powerful thought in one of her tapes; ‘If it was not for senseless wars, men and women who could have changed the world for the better, might have lived.’
Listen to to her tolerance.
On another tape she clearly is angry with Dr. Spock who she felt went to far in permissiveness, but there is no hate for the man.
There’s none of the fury which seems so prevalent today in America, aimed at people you disagree with, hate stirred by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.
Ruth was of course at a different level to Ollie, and yet they would’ve loved each other, I’m sure,
.
Ruth was feisty like Ollie. Ruth had a wicked sense of humor like Ollie, and Ruth hated pretense and snobbishness as did Olive.
By the way, as Eric points out, even if we do find out that Ruth and Olive were blogging at the same time, Olive was still the oldest blogger from Jan. 2008, when Ruth died, till July 2008.
So, we didn’t mislead you after all!
At such great ages as these, titles are often held for a very short time, even days sometimes.
Now, before you look at Ruth’s clips which I’ve lifted from the Growing Bolder site …. (thanks)
growingbolder.com/media/media-view.php?objId=959
You must know that below you’ll meet yet another interesting lady.
Her name is Morgan… She lives in upstate New York and she’s ….. well, she’s 96 years younger than Olive.
Why Morgan has been invited to the blog, I hope will become clear.
Here’s a Ruth story first. Now, you tell me why has this clip had only 24 visits?
……………….
………………
More marvelous videos from Ruth are to be found at .
………………..
growingbolder.com/media/media-view.php?objId=959
…………………………………
Now, let me tell you Morgan’s story. She’s 14, she tells me.
Last week, some short punchy comments began to appear on Ollie’s blog . They were full of “wow’s” and “amazing. ”
Some young person could not believe, for example, that Ollie had had all her teeth out in one go (Neither could I, for that matter)
This same young person, this Morgan, got stuck on Ollie’s pie passion, having no idea what an Aussie meat pie was
When I replied that our unique junk food, the sacred Aussie pie, was made with mince, that just added to the confusion.
For, whereas mince for us means chopped meat, for her it meant diced fruit filling.
…………….
…………….
Anyway, I was intrigued that this young person, this Morgan, had decided to read every one of Ollie’s posts, from the very beginning.
I wrote back and said; “Hey, Morgan , it’s great you’re reading it all
Now, If you send me your comments and if I like them, I’ll make a post out of what you say, perhaps more than one.
Check with your parents, though,” I said, not wanting to arouse suspicions. Her parents were cool, I mean, keen.
As I await Morgan’s jottings, I’ve a theory as to why she got hooked.
It was her Mum who found the blog, she says, mentioned in the NY Times, apparently and passed it on to her daughter.
But why did Morgan read it from the beginning?
Well, it turns out they live in Amish country.
The farm next to their place is Amish and has no electricity going to the house, for instance.
The Amish people use nothing modern. They live like Olive did as a girl.
……………….
………………
Morgan’s folks have to drive very carefully at night, she says, because the Amish buggies have no lights, and it’s easy to run into them.
Ah ha!, I thought, Moran has neighbors who actually live in Olive’s past! No wonder she’s so curious.
I’ve yet to have this theory confirmed . But I can’t wait to find out more from the girl from Amish country.
Her dog, by the way is an Amish beagle. Here’s Morgan and dog,
………………..
…………………
Over to you, Morgan!
Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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8 Responses to “SHE SHARED THE CROWN”
Leave a Reply
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Mike, I think Morgan has discovered what the secret is about everyone’s interest in Ollie’s story. She was an ordinary person who lived during some extraordinary world events. How she lived during those times and how they effected her (or not) are fascinating to read and watch. I hope we hear from Morgan what she thinks about the different events in Ollie’s life from a very young person’s perspective.
Thanks again for continuing with the “blob”, I’m sure Ollie would be tickled pink, VBG.
Hooroo,
Christine in sunny but windy Sydney
http://missmuffettwo.blogspot.com/
August 6th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Thank you Mike. All these people are amazing. As are you. I think that Ollie’s still got you blobbing….. ;0)
August 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Thanks for your comments Christine!!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Dear Mike,
I just discovered this blog and I absolutely love it. I read every single post, some made me laugh, some made me wonder, some made me sad, but I liked all of them.
I’m very sad, though, that Olive passed away. I bet she had a lot more stories to tell and I would have loved to leave her a comment that you could have read to her.
I want to thank you for spending so much time with her and recording her memories.
My grandparents died last winter and I very much regret not having done something similar with them. Now their memories are lost forever.
Which leads me to my question: Why don’t you publish the whole blog as a book? I think it would be nice to have her life in print, not only on the web where everything eventually vanishes. Books are more permanent.
I also want to encourage everyone whose grandparents (or other old relatives or friends for that matter) are still around to take the time and sit down with them to record their life stories. You never get that opportunity back once they’re gone.
Well, thank you again, also for continuing this “blob”, and I’m thrilled to read what Morgan has to say.
All the best from the other side of the globe,
Julia
August 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Julia, Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad that you are thrilled to hear why I have to say.People with nice things to say keep me going. Thanks again!!!
Morgan
August 10th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Dear folks - I think I’m pretty old to be blogging but am amazed that there are (were) bloggers 20 years older than I am! I’m looking around to find others of my kind but they seem to be few and far between. I guess the reigning queen of old bloggers now would be Maria Amelia in Spain at the age of 96. If there are other really old oldsters out there, please get in touch with me at http://www.musingsat85.com and we can chat about the “old days.” God bless!
Dorothy aka babydot
August 11th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I hope that you will continue to post about Olive, Mike. She was such a vivacious person, and even though she’s gone on to her next great adventure, her story isn’t finished here.
My prayers to you, your family, and Olive’s family.
Sarah
October 19th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Dear Mike,
Thank you so much for keeping Olive’s blob going.
I wrote her a note before she died and was
devastated when she did so much so I grieved all
day and made a scrapbook in her memory. Iam very
excited about the electric car. Also I like Morgan
she is a very unique girl
I can remember when I was a young girl sitting at
my grandmother’s knees in her rocking chair (of
which I still have) she died 62′.I am soon to be
78
Sincerly,
Jeri