100 Thanksgivings

Janet Imrick
Randolph Hub 

ASHEBORO — Family gatherings are a Sunday tradition for Glen Yow. He never needed a special occasion to pack up the two children and his wife Kitty and go to his mother's house.

It’s his daughter Ginger’s turn to host Thanksgiving dinner this year. It’s also Yow’s 100th Thanksgiving, and they are keeping the tradition of family and food. He hit the centennial milestone on Sept. 1 this year, with celebrations at Friendship Baptist Church in Asheboro and at Brookdale Senior Living where he is now.

“I told everybody, I said, 'Well, I lived this long as I got my mom's genes. She lived to be 102," Yow said.

Yow spends his days rolling out his battery-powered keyboard to play "Happy Birthday" and trade jokes with the other Brookdale residents. Joined by Ginger, he reflected on a life full of gratitude playing along Deep River, sailing with the Navy, and his rise to overseer for Burlington Industries.

Yow was born in Randleman in 1924, the oldest of five. "The only people who had cars back in those years was the banker, the druggist, the post office manager. People who had big jobs, you know, had cars. Other than that, nobody had cars. You had to walk wherever you went, unless you had a horse wagon."

Playtime was what you made it to be, according to Yow. “We more or less did all our growing up on that old river, fishing, going to the mill after it shut out,” he said. “Make a ball to play ball with or go out in the woods and cut a long dogwood stick to make a bat with.” 

If he wanted to go farther, he would wait for the train to come through on its way to Asheboro. It cost 25 cents to ride. Candy and chewing gum were a penny at the dime store. A hot dog was five cents. He earned nickels mowing lawns then went to work for a local hardware store at 11 or 12 years old.

Yow's father worked at the Cone Mill in Greensboro while his mother was a seamstress. He left school after 11th grade to work. "I think the farthest I'd been out of Randleman was High Point or Greensboro before I was put in the Navy," he said. 

Once the U.S. entered World War II, Yow transported food, munitions and fuel across the Atlantic. "The third time, I think, we went across, and we went to Russia at the White Sea, close to the North Pole," he said. "It was cold. The snow, it was very fine snow, and it was 24-hour daylight in January. It never did get dark. It'd get to about sunset and then it'd get light again."

Yow would meet a girl from New Jersey whenever on leave and go skiing. He wanted her to come down to South Carolina to get married. She called him, too scared, she told him, to take the train all the way down.

A damaged propeller prevented Yow’s ship from joining the Normandy invasion. Yow did not even hear it had happened until his father told him during shore leave. When the war was over, he and his uncle looked for work back home in the textile mills. "We went out there that night. The interviews were getting started. Sitting outside, this blessed blonde comes in, smiling, comes by me. I said, 'Hello, Blondie.' She said, 'Shut up!’ " Yow recalled. "Two weeks later, I was dating her. Six months later, I married her."

Family excursions included Fourth of July trips to White Lake and bus tours to other states, with one large family trip to Canada and back. But Yow's go-to pastime was golf, which he played until he was 95, ending with five holes-in-one. He and his father also ranked among the top players in archery.

"Winston-Salem had a state tournament. Me and my dad joined, this three-day deal," Yow said. "Me and him got through, I guess at two o'clock that evening that Sunday. We said, 'Let's go home.' About the time we got home, it was suppertime. When we got back, we were going to the side door. There was two trophies sitting out there. He won second place for his flight, and I won first."

While sports outings took him up and down the East Coast, trips to his mother's house were a constant. "Every Sunday night without fail," Ginger said. "All the family was there, all the grandkids, all the brothers and sisters. We had these big reunions."

"My wife, Kitty, she could make the best persimmon pudding and fried chicken," Yow said.

"And potato salad," said Ginger. "Mom cooked for a thousand every Sunday, even if it was just us. She didn't know how to cook small."

With all those things in life to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, Yow said it’s notable that all his family remains close by. "A lot of families, if you check with them, they have a lot of kids. One in New York, one in New Jersey, one in Georgia. Never close together. But we was all right there, within 15 minutes of Mama's house."