Centenarian recalls simpler past, meeting town founders

PHOTO BY CHRISTINA McCUNE | BGNN
Laura Witchey enjoys a visit and shares laughs with her granddaughter, Sarah Witchey, in December in Norton as they take a trip down memory lane. The matriarch of the family will celebrate her 104th birthday this month.

By CHRISTINA McCUNE
BGNN managing editor

NORTON  Laura Witchey isn’t on TikTok.

She doesn’t listen to podcasts or stream movies. She doesn’t use a smartwatch or apps on an electronic device.

She is too humble to give herself this label, but she is somewhat of an icon. She moves quietly among the rest of us who have cellphones close at hand and the latest gadgets in our cars, homes and workplaces – and we complain when the Internet is too slow.

Witchey is quick to smile and laugh and her memory is sharp – so is her wit.

This 103-year-old holds her own when she and Sarah Witchey, one of her granddaughters, get together. They banter and tease each other.

“I don’t prefer to be the center of attention – I never did,” the Norton woman said.

But her 40-year-old granddaughter – the daughter of Laura’s fifth child, Glenn, whom Laura called her “bonus baby” – treasures her grandmother’s stories and knowledge and feels it is important to share that history.

Especially with another milestone birthday coming up. Laura Witchey will turn 104 on Jan. 13.

“Every school that I’ve gone to now has been torn down,” Witchey said. “Every one of them.”

But some of the houses her family built along Barber and Clark Mill roads are still standing and she continues to live in a house her husband built in Norton.

Witchey was one of three children. She was born in a southern Ohio coal-mining town called Glouster. She had two brothers: Bill was just over a year younger and Seldon was 10 years younger.

“No sisters,” she said. “Do you know I wanted a sister so bad and I would cry and my girlfriend at school said, ‘well, you can have mine.”

Witchey asked for permission to brag a little. She then shared that she skipped third grade when she attended school in Barberton.

“They called it double promoting,” she said.

She was introduced to Barberton when she travel with her grandparents via train as the coal mines were beginning to close. They arrived at the Fourth Street depot which now houses Anna Bean Coffee Company near Angie’s Italian Restaurant.

“My grandmother wanted me to come with her so bad so my mom let Grandma bring me up here,” she said.

The rest of her family soon followed. She attended Central School where the YMCA is now. She also went to Rose Street School, which was later changed to Santrock School. Her grandfather worked at the Diamond Match Company founded by O.C. Barber, who also founded Barberton. She said she remembers Barber giving her family a bull. She said her family also had a horse, as well as a cow and they milked the cow and churned their own butter.

Another brush with an important local historical figure involves an interesting story. When Witchey was a young girl she remembers walking to school on a winter’s day and finding an old coin purse in the road. She handed it to her brother who turned it in to their parents when they got home. Witchey remembers her parents subscribing to the Akron Beacon Journal and they also purchased the Akron Times-Press to see if anyone placed any ads looking for a missing coin purse so they could return it to its rightful owner. After awhile no one claimed the purse or money so they kept it and made a down payment on property.

Witchey recalls the property was purchased from William A. Johnston, who mapped out Barberton. Johnston gave her a quarter.

“It was like a million dollars,” she said. “He gave my brother two. … And I took my quarter – there was no tax on things at that time – and took it to downtown Barberton and I bought me a dress. No tax, nothing. With a quarter.”

She went to Marshall’s Department Store in downtown Barberton, which is one of the places she says she misses from years past.

Witchey has always been independent. As a young child, she decided to try different churches and walked on her own to any church within walking distance.

“I would pick whatever church I wanted to go visit,” she said.

When she had her own family, they attended church three days a week. She still stays in touch with the pastor and his wife of the church she recently attended.

Witchey has wonderful detailed memories to share. She remembers her mom making pies. One of her earliest memories is of her mother scrubbing the floor of their little house and placing her and her brother on the table out of the way each with a piece of bread spread with lard sprinkled with sugar to keep them occupied. She remembers coming out of the Great Depression and her father had bought a 20-pound box of macaroni.

“What they put before you you ate,” she said.

She and her brother enjoyed eating the pasta with milk.

“We didn’t lack for playing,” she said. “We made our own games and stuff. We didn’t have to have something like they do now.” Witchey often had a jump rope hanging over her shoulders.

Witchey’s granddaughter, Sarah, asked her about a favorite memory from over the decades.

“Probably when I was young – oh when you fall in love,” Witchey said. “That’s a happy time.”

She remembers walking to the movies in downtown Barberton. She doesn’t remember the first movie she saw but it likely was a black-and-white silent film.

“That was our entertainment at that time – going to the show,” she said.

Since TV became prevalent in homes she said she stopped going to the movies. One of the last movies she saw in the theater might have been “Gone With the Wind.”

“When we got that TV we were rich,” she said.

She mentioned “Trumpet in the Land,” an outdoor drama in New Philadelphia, and taking her grandchildren on day trips.

“She was a very active grandparent,” Sarah Witchey said.

Sarah brought up fun memories of playing board games at her grandmother’s house, especially Aggravation.

Laura and her husband, Earl, enjoyed camping and traveling with their children. The Witcheys traveled across the country to every state and into Canada when Earl had vacation time. She said she loved camping in their little camper and he had built a stove they could use.

As a kid, she never expected she would fall in love and marry the man who was 6 years older than her and who hung out with her uncle who lived with them in their Clark Mill Road home.

“I knew him since I was 10 years old,” she said. “I couldn’t stand him growing up. He ran around with my uncle that lived with us. And I couldn’t stand it when he’d come to the house. I don’t know what happened.”

She remembers that Babcock & Wilcox, where Earl Witchey and her uncle worked, had a picnic and he went to a fortune teller who told him he was going to marry a “neighbor girl,”

“And I said, ‘well it sure’s not going to be me,” she said. “And what happens? You don’t have the answer to it.”

They married Jan. 13, 1940 on Laura’s 18th birthday.

She dropped out of Norton High School. Well, Laura Witchey will tell you she “quit-uated.”

“I quit-uated and got married. I was married on my 18th birthday. I was a senior and I thought I was a big shot and quit school. I never lived to regret it.”

Laura Witchey worked in the home as was traditional at that time but she also worked out of the home while her husband was at work. She worked at a couple of restaurants before she had children and she later worked at Seiberling as did her mother. But she didn’t tell her husband at first because she wasn’t sure how he would react.

Witchey was a “Rosie the Riveter” at Sieberling. She was stopped on the street and asked to go to work so she did. She worked about four hours a day while her husband was at work at Babcock & Wilcox.

She needn’t have been concerned about what her husband would say, when he found out about her job he took it into stride.

“It was World War II and there weren’t any men walking the streets,” she said. “And older men would stop you on the street and ask you to go to work. That’s how I started at Seiberling.”

Later, she worked at Marshall’s Department store in downtown Barberton and Grant’s Department Store in Norton. She worked in the curtain department.

Witchey’s favorite Bible verse is the shortest one, she said: “Jesus wept” John 11:35. She doesn’t read the Bible as much as she used to but it’s always close at hand.

Earl Witchey passed away Nov. 4, 1988 They were married almost 50 years. Her mother passed away within a couple of weeks of her husband. Her daughter Janet died of a health issue at only 16. Witchey has had a lot of ups and downs in her life like anyone and treasures the connections and the memories.

Friend Paulette Raymondo completed in September 2023 a detailed account of Witchey’s history and a typical day in Witchey’s life. Family members have copies of the nearly 200 pages in a binder neatly organized into chapters that include photocopies of pictures as well as recipes and other memorabilia from over the past century. She was called “Aunt Laura” at church where many family members attended and church members continued to call her Aunt Laura. The book mentions Raymondo was introduced to “Aunt Laura” more than 65 years ago thanks to Linda Vazsonyi Taylor (Raymondo’s best friend and Witchey’s niece.) Raymondo wrote that Witchey would have been 25 years old when she was born and she pictured her as “an intelligent, independent, adventurous young woman.

“As of this writing today, she is a hundred and one years old and I still see her as I had pictured her. To me, she is a remarkable woman who has had her share of sorrow and sad times, as well as joy and good times. When I visit with her, I always come away with a smile and feeling better about everything in general. She is fun to be around,” Raymondo wrote.

Witchey’s story that Raymondo compiled is dedicated to her five children: three daughters, Bernice, Gloria and Janet; and two sons, Roy and Glenn; as well as Witchey’s 12 grandchildren and the memory of one who passed away as an infant. The book was also dedicated to her many great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and great-great great-grandchildren. Raymondo also dedicated the book to her own mother who she wrote had much in common with Witchey. The book included photocopies of two “Happy birthday notes” she received from The White House – one signed by George and Laura Bush and the other from Barack and Michelle Obama.

Just before Christmas, Witchey recalled some memories from holidays past. She said during the Great Depression when she was about 7 or 8 years old her mother had made a dress for her doll.

“One Christmas that I remember my mom tore up an old dress and made a dress for that doll and boy, I thought I was rich,” she said.

Her Dad would cut down a thornbush and bring it in and they would decorate it with candy like gumdrops, which kids could pluck off and eat. She remembers wrapping gifts in the newspaper’s “funny pages” and making their own decorations. She also remembers her children having their Santa letters printed in The Barberton Herald when they were young students.

Does she make New Year’s resolutions and have any in particular for 2026?

“I’m going to diet,” she said with a laugh. “That doesn’t last very long.”

Sarah Witchey said even though her grandma doesn’t want any special attention, they will have to celebrate the beloved matriarch on her 104th birthday.

‘The Good Lord is not finished with me yet is all I know,” Laura said. “But I’ve been blessed. I can’t do my work like I used to but I can still cook.”

Witchey may not have the latest electronic or “smart” device. She said the washing machine has been one of the inventions she has enjoyed the most over the years. Still to this day, when she needs to wash something small, she simply uses her washboard and hangs it up to dry. Saves time, money and electricity – which is smart.

And also harkens back to a simpler quieter time when you could buy a dress for a quarter in downtown Barberton and watch a movie for only 5 cents – as long as you had a coupon from the newspaper otherwise a movie was a dime.

Witchey still enjoys watching reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show and listening to polka and gospel music. She had a record player that she loved and she marveled how you could set 10 records in the player so it would continuously play.

Sarah said her sister-in-law does her grandma’s hair and her grandmother just has a natural glow without any kind of special skin care regimen. She said she has never smoked a cigarette or drank alcohol but she has never followed a particular diet.

“That’s what the doctor said – he lets the patients that old eat whatever they want,” Laura said.

She believes a key to youth may be staying active.

“I gave up driving on my own because I figure nobody my age should be out there driving – however there are some young ones out there who shouldn’t be driving,” she said with a laugh.

That gives her an excuse to visit with family members and friends who would like to drive her.

“She’s my bestest friend,” Sarah Witchey said.

Even with a difference in age of more than 60 years, the duo are quite a pair laughing together and sharing memories. They enjoy going out to eat and browsing and shopping at the Dollar Tree.

“I can depend on her for anything,” Laura Witchey said.

“She is super funny,” Sarah Witchey said.

“Looks aren’t everything,” her grandmother quipped.