She sounded young and pretty, a lady with a sweet voice. She occasionally called David Goodin at work, and one of his co-workers who answered the phone became more than curious, perhaps a bit alarmed. What would David’s wife think?

Nothing to worry about, Goodin said. The lady with the sweet voice — and yes, she was pretty  — was his grandmother.

And in a few weeks she’ll be 99.

Annie Smith Goodin Stanford belies her years. She lives alone in an apartment, cooks, sews, quilts, is active in church and, until a few years ago, drove her car.

She only quit driving when someone stole her Oldsmobile, stripped it and junked it.

Though she suffered a broken hip, her walker is often left leaning against the wall. The pacemaker she got 15 years ago has never had a new battery, for she seldom needs the heart-assisting apparatus.

Born in Jefferson County July 27, 1910, she was one of seven children of James Matthew and Annie Mae Smith. “Everybody down there (in the Ephesus Church area) named Smith is kin to me,” she laughed. That’s a lot of Smiths — but, when she was 12, the Smith numbers decreased by nine for she and her six siblings and their parents moved to Warren County, settling in the Bovina area where she went to school and where she got her first job, also when she was about 12, working at Hebler’s Store.

At 17, she married Grant Goodin, and they had a son, L.C. “Cecil” Goodin. She later married Jeff Stanford.

Stanford was a sparse, red-haired man who worked for the sheriff’s department. He lived on Fisher’s Ferry Road, in the Jeff Davis community, and he was seven years older than Annie.

“I met him a long time before I married him,” she said. “I had a friend who was going with his brother, Kline Stanford, and she introduced us. We were just friends.”

Their courtship worked, she said, “because he worked it. I told Mama, ‘I don’t want to go with Jeff. I’m going to hide and you tell him I’m not here.’”

“I’m not going to tell no story about you,” her mother replied. “You are here, and he’s going to know it.”

Every day, Miss Annie said, Jeff walked from his house to the Smiths’ to see her — about 6 miles round trip.

“I’d say, Mama, there he comes again. Oh, please tell him I’m not here, and she’d say, ‘You’re going to sit here and talk to him.”

“He just kept coming,” she recalled, “and I said I guess I’d have to marry him to get rid of him and I was so glad I did, because he was the best man in the world, I do believe.”

In addition to her son, Cecil, she also raised the six children who belonged to her sister and brother-in-law, Bill and Bonnie Mae Ritchie, because of Bonnie Mae’s death from cancer.

Miss Annie learned to cook, sew and quilt as a child. She still uses black iron cookware. She likes to cook for people, especially if they like good country fare such as peas and greens and cornbread. She pulls her quilting frames up to the ceiling, just like it used to be done, and she makes quilts for her family, noting “that’s how we kept warm when I was growing up.” She also makes some of her dresses and has made clothing for needy children.

She thinks perhaps the automobile has been responsible for the most changes in society, but she also remembers when electricity first came to the Jeff Davis community, about 1940, when there were some wires strung through the house “with a string coming down and we had one little light bulb at the end of that string, and we thought it was great.” She stlil has her coal oil lamp, a reminder of the past.

Church has long been an important part of her life. She’s been a member of the Church of the Nazarene since it was organized in Vicksburg 70 years ago. She’s one of the 13 charter members. She helped dig up stumps on the lot at Main and Adams streets and “nailed a lot of nails” as the members built their first church. Last year, the congregation presented her with a plaque thanking her for her vision and dedication.

Her religious activity isn’t confined to the church walls. Almost 30 years ago, she posted notices at the apartment complex where she lives inviting folks to come and bring lawn chairs and meet under the oak tree near her apartment. She prepared snacks, everyone visited, and she asked if they would be interested in forming a Bible study group. She’s still the leader of the group, but they’ve moved inside to more comfortable quarters. She said she learned Bible lessons because she’s gone to church all of her life and is currently reading the Bible from cover to cover for the 14th time. Every member of her family, down to the great-grandchildren and those she helped raise, attends church.

For almost 40 years, she worked for Stanley Home Products, living for a time in Baton Rouge, then in Montgomery. For years, her husband was bedridden, and she took care of him. He died in 1964, and in 1994 her son, Cecil, and his wife were killed in an automobile accident. After her retirement at 67, she continued to work part time, serving foods in promotional marketing at local stores.

Three years ago she broke her hip, and folks in the medical field thought she would never walk again, and “they just rolled their eyes around” when she went to physical therapy.

“I told them, ‘Let me tell you one thing right now,’ she said, ‘I’m getting out of this place.’ No broken hip was going to kill me.”

“I’m still hopping,” she said.

Miss Annie said longevity runs in her family. Her grandfather lacked only a few days of being 100, and many others have lived into their upper 80s. Her sister Rose, her only living sibling, is 89. Part of it is genetic, she said, but a lot has to do with taking care of yourself. She feels great, she said, and can’t even make a comparison of years gone by “because it’s been so long ago, that I don’t even know how a 75-year-old feels.”

“Whether you know it or not,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “I do a lot of talking.” Some say she likes to be in charge, and many will agree that Annie Stanford has been an inspiration.

What are her plans for her 99th birthday? All of the family are coming, including the Ritchie children, but she’s already making plans for the big one. She’s only a year away from being 100.

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.