Keota Woman Turning 100

KEOTA – Alice Patterson, of Keota, will soon turn 100. Patterson (neé Wilson) was born on July 1, 1924, and grew up in Washington, Iowa. She had seven siblings, only one of which, her adoptive brother Joe, is still living. Patterson dropped out of school after eighth grade and married her first husband, Walt McArtor, at 16. She divorced her first husband after her first four sons were born and remarried Homer “Pat” Patterson.

“I got married again. And I got married at the Baptist Church at Cahokia Missouri,” said Patterson. “We went to see the preacher about getting married, and he said he had to preach to the church first, so he did, and all of the church people stayed and I had lots of people at my wedding and didn’t know anybody.”

Alice Patterson had three boys and two girls with Pat, along with two stepsons raised elsewhere, bringing her number of children to 13, eight of whom are still living. “I was a stay at home mom,” Patterson said. “I made all our bread. I canned. Some days we had seven gardens. All of the kids worked in the garden. I canned everything I could, which was a lot better than what people eat now.”

Patterson also has 56 grand kids, 115 great grandkids, 68 great great grandkids, 7 great great great grandkids. At least fifty of her descendents crowd into her home each year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, with around 75 coming every year for Easter. “The kids don’t want to have a party nowhere else. They want to come home. Some of them, they stand up to eat, they don’t care,” said Patterson. Patterson holds Easter egg hunts for four different age groups (babies, kids, teenagers and adults) every year, giving out buckets full of eggs. 

When Patterson was younger, she enjoyed cooking, fishing, mushroom hunting, and crocheting. She did not allow a television in the house until all of her kids had grown up. She made sure her kids did their chores and ate three meals a day. Her children loved her cooking, especially her homemade macaroni and cheese. “I did a lot of cooking. And  I made all of our own bread. The kids, they couldn’t wait to get out of school and come home because I’d have cinnamon rolls ready for them or homemade bread. It took a lot of food to feed them, but we raised most of what we had,” said Patterson.

“There is no describing how the world has changed...For one thing, it’s the kids,” said Patterson. “Kids nowadays, they’re not taught to do anything. They’re not taught to work. What is this world gonna be like?”

Patterson moved to Keota in 1953 and has lived in the same house since 1962. Around town, Patterson is known as the “Popcorn Ball Lady,” because she has been handing out popcorn balls on Halloween for 75 years. Kids who used to trick or treat at her house now bring their grandkids. Patterson is an avid reader and enjoys reading anything she can. She was involved with the Moose Lodge and VFW Women’s Auxiliary. For ten years, she owned a craft shop named Alice’s Crafts. The shop was closed when her husband died in 1989; she briefly reopened it, but it was too much to keep it open. Recently, she was the grand marshall of the parade during Keota Fun Days.

Raising eleven children kept Patterson very busy when she was younger. “I scrubbed clothes on the board. I used a wringer washing machine,” said Patterson. “I never had a washer or dryer until 1962. Always did my laundry in the basement, carried it up, carried it outdoors to the clothes line, hung it up. No matter what the weather was, you still hung it up. And when you’d go in the wintertime and bring it back, it'd be froze and you’d have to hang it on racks around to dry.”

Nowadays, Patterson is taken care of by three of her daughters. She receives frequent visits from her grandchildren. She eats bacon, eggs and toast every morning and spends her time reading and watching the news and game shows. “I think the best years of my life was when the kids were growing up...they kept me young...My youngest daughter says I’m gonna live to be 105, but I don’t know,” said Patterson.

Patterson’s family is planning a large celebration at her home in Keota for June 30.