Longevity
How old does this woman look? My great aunt Sylvia says her dad told her that his grandma Serena lived to be 104. I've heard a similar brag from my grandpa. Serena was my 3rd great grandmother. Her death certificate says she was "about 96" when she died. Many people in those days died decades younger than that, so I can see why her longevity was legendary. Living that long, maybe people forgot how old they really were, but the earliest record I can find estimates her birth year as 1841, meaning she could have been as young as 84 at her death in 1925. I have learned that estimations of birth dates on census records are to be taken lightly though: sometimes a neighbor who knew little was the informant. In 1850, Serena was living with her parents, Lewis Frasher ("Frazier") and Mary Bailey, and her siblings in Meigs County, Ohio, close to the West Virginia border. Her father was a miner. Three years later, in 1853, Serena married my 3rd great grandfather...