Centenarian celebrates 105th birthday with a party open to the public

MINERAL WELLS—Dean Abbott said the most significant and beneficial change she’s experienced in her nearly 105 years is a luxury many take for granted – the indoor toilet.

Born May 26, 1920, Abbott recalled how outhouses were the norm for the entire community during her childhood in Newcastle, Texas.

“Nobody had bathrooms back in those days,” she explained. “No such thing. You had a little outhouse with a little hole and when you went out there in the winter – it was cold!”

Toilet paper was nonexistent as well. But that didn’t keep her family from critical innovation.

“We used a Sears catalog,” Dean noted with a chuckle. “We had no electricity, no radios and no TV. Things have changed quite a bit.”

To celebrate what Dean calls 105 years of “hard work and clean living,” she is having a party at Immanuel Baptist Church on Sunday, May 25 – the day before her birthday. The party will be held in the Fellowship Hall after church services, around 2 – 4 p.m.

The church is located at 1413 SE 16th St., Mineral Wells. The public is invited but, “No gifts, please. Cards would be nice, but no gifts,” Dean insisted.

The longtime Mineral Wells resident said she’s not sending out birthday invitations this year because of another drastic change in her lifetime – the price of postage.

“Do you know a stamp will cost you 73 cents,” she exclaimed. “For one stamp! And somebody told me they were fixin’ to go up again. I can remember when they was three cents.”

Dean was born Dean Harrell in Mena, Arkansas. She had six sisters and one brother. She was the second youngest of her siblings and has outlived them all.

“I’m the last one in our family,” Dean said. “Even my baby sister, she’s gone too. And, never any of them lived to be 100.”

Her family moved to Newcastle when she was three years old. They left Mena in an old pickup truck which made it 12 miles down dirt roads before its lights gave out near a cemetery.

Dean said her brother-in-law walked all the way back into town and returned with a lantern. He then walked in front of the truck to light the way as the caravan continued through the night onward to their new home.

Dean’s father, Milton “Mitt” Harrell, was a Spanish-American War veteran and a blacksmith with a very gifted green thumb. Her mother, Ida Mae, canned food like a pro. The couple’s shared skills, along with the help of their many children, kept bellies full during the Great Depression from 1929-1933.

“Daddy raised a good garden,” Dean said. “And that’s one of the things us kids had to do in the summer is help shell the peas, shuck the corn and all that kind of stuff while momma canned.”

Ida Mae even took in ‘canning on the halves.’ Someone would bring her food to can and pay her by giving her half. It was a simple form of bartering and community support, where the sharing of canned food was a way of maintaining food security and fostering neighborly bonds – especially during the lean years of the Depression.

“My momma would put us to work, but we never went hungry,” Dean said. “Plus, we had a cow, we had a pig, we had chickens. We had plenty of food, but we worked.”

Abbott married Joe Creed during her senior year of high school when she was 18. In 1938, Creed went to work building the Possum Kingdom Dam. The couple lived in a tent near the construction site during that time with other crew members and their spouses.

“Everybody lived in a tent,” Abbott noted. “We just thought of it as camping.”

They had three children, Karen (Walker), Glenda (Tomerlin) and Lloyd Creed. As a happy coincidence, Lloyd’s birthday is the same as his mother’s, May 26. This year, he will be 81 as he celebrates alongside his mom.

“When he was a little kid, he always used to say, ‘Me and momma were born at the same time,’” Abbott recalled. “I thought that was so cute.”

Unfortunately, her marriage to Joe didn’t last and Dean found herself a single parent for seven years. She moved back in with her mother, picked cotton, sewed, worked as a beautician and babysat to make ends meet.

To save money, she also made all of her children’s clothes – a loving practice she continues for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren today.

“She made all our clothes,” Karen said. “She still makes my clothes.”

James E. Abbott, who went by J.E., entered the picture and they soon married. In 1952, the newlyweds purchased a new home in Mineral Wells. The cozy abode had two bedrooms and one bathroom.

“I thought I had a mansion,” Dean recalled. “It had an indoor bathroom and hardwood floors. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”

J.E. worked as a butcher and then for Edo Aire/Mitchell Industries, which later became Century Flight Systems.

While raising her family, Dean decided to get a driver’s license. She never had one before and was inspired by her daughter, Glenda, who was 16 at the time and learning to drive.

Mother and daughter went to take the test together. Abbott remembered how her daughter finished quickly and was pestering her to hurry up.

“She kept saying, ‘Why are you so slow?’” Abbott said. “I wanted to take my time and think about the answers and get it right.”

Turns out she answered more questions correctly than Glenda. Abbott passed and her teenage daughter failed.

“She had to go back and take it again,” Abbott said with a slight grin. “So I like to say we got our driver’s license about the same time.”

Abbott enjoyed a lengthy career spanning 36 years working for The Box Factory, Edo Aire/Mitchell Industries and Century Flight Systems.

She retired twice. The first time, she was 65. But her employer soon pleaded with her to return and she retired again at 70 – that time for good.

Dean and J.E. added on to their home and she still lives there today as a widow. J.E passed away in 2010. They were married for 62 years.

Abbott does her own cooking, laundry, housekeeping and balances her checkbook to the penny. She’s active with her church, Emmanuel Baptist in Mineral Wells. Her close friend, Sharon Walls, picks her up every Sunday to attend services and events.

“If they’re going to have a luncheon, I always cook something,” Abbott said. “Everybody loves everything I cook, because when I bring the dish home, it’s clean and nothing in it.”

In addition to her three children (sadly, Glenda died in April 2024), Abbott has seven grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

“She has a T-shirt I made for her that says, ‘My contribution to the human race,’” Karen said.

Dean also has some advice to contribute to the human race about living a long and fulfilling life:

“Hard work and clean living,” she said. “I didn’t smoke, drink or cuss – much.”