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Show 100 Years Living a common, everyday life just might get you there the commonest people you ever knew." When clothes got too "old" to wear, they were dyed and made into rugs, as an example of Mrs. Holyoak's industry. "Ther's no secret," Mrs. Holyoak says of her long life, " just do the best you can everyday. I've had an extra good family-I don't brag to them-but I think they are the finest children anywhere. I always got along with everyone I knew and never quarelled, even with my children. We were just plan people, the way people are taught to be." That's the secret. t ' t - 4 By Jay Wamsley Just in case you have ambitions to live to be a century old, Mrs. Alice Holyoak , who turned 100 June 29, is happy to give you a hint: "I've lived a common, com-mon, everyday life, the way people are supposed to live." But daughters of Mrs. Holyoak reveal, another secret to her long life is "to pretend to stay young." "She stayed 40 until Alice, her oldest daughter, turned 40," Emma Mortensen, a daughter who lives in Parowan said. "All her life she was 40 years younger than she should have been." Mrs. Holyoak said the finest part of her life has been "to have a home and have one child after another." She said she raised them the very best she could and that's the finest reward she could have. Mother of seven Mother of seven, Mrs. Holyoak also recalls meeting her husband at the old Murdock Academy, also known as the Beaver Branch of BYU. She said she made up her mind not to marry a man who wouldn't "take her to the temple" to b'e married, and upon meeting Thomas Holyoak decided he was the man she wanted to marry. "Good land, everyone has desires to get married. I finally got him - somehow or another. "He went on a mission right after we met," She remembered, "and asked me to correspond with him while he was away , which I always did." Mrs. Holyoak said they were married in the St. ALICE HOLYOAK generally with her daughters and sons, sometimes playing rummy. "I'm not a very good player, " she says, "and I think it is a bad habit. But we have to pass the time. I don't hear and I don't talk very much, but I still don't believe it is right to play cards like we do." But rummy hasn't been Mrs. Holyoak's sole amusement in years past. She had to quit working on quilts and handiwork only two years ago, due to ar thritis and the frustration that accompanied it. She also used to paint and the Iron County Fair always had 8-10 articles submitted for judging by the great-grandmother great-grandmother of 67. "We beleived in home industry and tried to live it," Mrs. Holyoak said. "We never believed in throwing anything away. We are just George Temple, then a two-day two-day trip down and two days back, on June 21, 1901. Thomas, a Parowan boy, brought Alice back to the little Iron County community com-munity where he proceeded to farm. Poor as mice "We were as poor as church mice when we came here. I sold eggs to a man from Beaver and that's the way we lived," the grandmother grand-mother of 23 said. "And I was an extra good gardner then, too. I walked up and down the lane for years and years. Thomas whould always say the horses have worked all day and if you want to go to Relief Society you'll have to walk. So I walked. "But it hasn't been hard to live down the lane," she said. Mrs. Holyoak kept chickens and raised a garden until as recent as six years ago. "I used to think I was a good cook," she said, to which her family will attest. No one could walk in the house, Daughter Emma said, without getting a slice of homemade bread. Son-in-law Clifford Mortensen said Mrs. Holyoak made the "best sugar Cookies I'll ever hope to eat." Plus, he said, she was a champion at making root beer. Born in Paragonah, Mrs. Holyoak describes the social life of the small town as being built around "common dances." Plenty of dances "Paragonah was real small then. We mostly had dances and that was about all. There was a large place to hold dances. The main object in our life was to dance, although I don't know how to do a step now," Other memories of early Iron County are not so pleasant, she said, such as her fear of the Indians who would camp near the town. Her husband knew the Indian In-dian language and would often trade with them , so they frequented the farm. Daughter Alice Barton , also still living in Parowan. said she can remember when her father once tried to trade her for a handful of pinenuts, in jest, of course. She said she remembers tne Indian trader turning duwn the deal , saying. "She ,11 just grow up and run away w ith a white man " "I was sure relieved when he said no." Mrs. Barton said.. Vision Failing Vision and hearing failing. Mrs. Holyoak spends most of her day inside her horr.p. two miles west of Parowan on Holyoak Lane Time is spf.nt |