By Abby Baker | Staff Intern
Many family members and friends gathered around Pauline Haskins Saturday, Jan. 9, to celebrate Haskins’ 99th birthday and almost a century of memories.
Though Haskins has lived at Stone Ledge Manor, an assisted living and memory care center in Thonotosassa, since 2011, she was born in Madison, Florida Jan. 7, 1917.
Haskins’s father worked in the strawberry packing business, causing Haskins and her siblings to move frequently through the state of Florida.
But when she was 19, she insisted on staying on a family farm with her cousin. She had just acquired a position as a nanny and didn’t want to lose the job.
When she was 22, Haskins attended a dance in Lakeland. There, she caught sight of Henry “Jack” Haskins, a man that she would be married to for 49 years.
“I said, ‘That’s a beautiful boy, and on the first date I kissed him,’” Haskins said. “I didn’t mean to be any harm.”
Jack won her hand in marriage after a year of dating. When she was 23, they had a small wedding at a pastor’s parsonage in Lakeland.
Again, Haskins was on the move around Florida. But this time it was because of her husband’s career on the railroad.
The Haskins settled permanently at a home in Seffner.
“It had a huge, beautiful yard with roses,” Sherry Reilly, one of Haskins’s grandchildren, said. “I remember she always had clotheslines up and there was a small kitchen with a lot of good food.”
Even though Haskins has since moved out of her Seffner home and Jack died of a heart attack in 1990, her family visits and calls her frequently at Stone Ledge Manor.
COOKING UP TALENT
Haskins’ mother died when was 16, leaving the seven children to take care of each other when their father was working.
The third born, Haskins learned to cook to keep dinner on the table for her family. Once a necessity, cooking evolved into a lifelong passion.
Haskins has three daughters, six grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren. They agree cooking is her talent.
“My mom always made any holidays special,” her daughter, Faye Haskins, said. “She really is a wonderful cook.”
When a friend recommended her for a job in the Franklin Elementary School lunchroom cafeteria, she took it.
Haskins was also a dedicated seamstress. She sowed her loved ones clothes throughout the years and even completed her daughter, Gale Darsey’s, wedding dress in 1960.
Abby Baker is a journalism student at Hillsborough Community College and an intern with the Plant City Times & Observer.