Dawson woman prepares to celebrate 108th birthday

DAWSON – Grace Cutts will be 108 years old on Monday. The lifelong resident of Dawson may or may not be the oldest living Georgian at this time; however, there is no doubt that she is the oldest living resident of Terrell county and the oldest living graduate of the Georgia Normal College (Albany State University) and Spelman College in Atlanta.

She still has the same bright smile captured in pictures taken of her spanning more than a century of living.

Cutts lives in a home that is just a block away from the home she was born in on March 2, 1912. She also has the distinction of being the oldest member of Atoc A.M.E. Church a few blocks farther from her home. A number of plaques noting this fact are displayed in her home, and this Sunday she will have attended services there for 102 years.

A month after her birth, the R.M.S. Titanic would leave Southhampton on its infamous maiden voyage. The same year, William Christopher Handy would change the course of American music with “Memphis Blues.” The Girl Scouts would be founded in Savannah. Thomas Edison would produce the first talking motion picture. The Florida Keys would be connected to the mainland for the first time with the creation of the Overseas Railroad Line. Kewpie Dolls, Oreos, and lifesavers would be invented. The first paper shopping bag received a patent. New Mexico and Arizona would become states. Japan would send 3,020 flowering cherry trees to Washington, D.C., where some still bloom today.

To say that Cutts was born into a world far different than the one she lives in today would be an understatement. Women in the United States did not have the right to vote, and voting for African Americans was a challenge. Most of rural America did not have electricity. Most residents in Terrell County worked in agriculture-related jobs. Opportunities for and the pursuit of education beyond high school was not as common as it is today.

In this regard and others, Cutts was an exception. Her father was a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. As stated previously, she attended college and would have a career as a teacher in Terrell county until she retired.

Her first husband, Walter Richardson, was a carpenter and they had a son who is now deceased. She has two grandchildren, one of whom is a corporate attorney living in London.

Staff Photo: Tom Seegmueller